


tell me

by orphan_account



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst and Porn, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Gods and Goddesses, Inspired by Eros and Psyche, Multi, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Penetrative Sex, Sansa is Eros, Theon is Psyche, a lot of porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:40:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21578971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: She wraps a blindfold over his eyes in the dead of night and offers him her heart under the condition that he must never look at her face. He soon learns that love cannot dwell with suspicion nor can it live without trust.An Eros & Psyche AU.
Relationships: Alannys Harlaw/Elia Martell, Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, Catelyn Stark/Ned Stark, Jeyne Poole/Jon Snow, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Robb Stark/Jeyne Westerling (past), Robb Stark/Margaery Tyrell, Roslin Frey/Robb Stark (past), Talisa Maegyr/Robb Stark (Past), Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark, Yara Greyjoy/Daenerys Targaryen, brief Theon Greyjoy/Kyra
Comments: 15
Kudos: 75





	tell me

**Author's Note:**

> This one was a whammy but I really wanted to just write it and get it off my mind, so I'm popping in to drop this. This goes out to procellous for inspiring me to write this and to sansaastaerk for being a lovely beta and always coming in clutch with amazing advice. I know there's a lot of porn here but... it was necessary.
> 
> This fic could not have gotten written without 'Tell Me' by Johnny Jewel ft. Saoirse Ronan so give it a listen!

Light streamed through the wooden panels nailed into the windows, illuminating strips of the girl’s skin beneath him as if the afternoon sun throbbed with the very same pleasure he did. She cried out as he drove deeper into her, his pacing entirely lost now that he was edging closer to his peak. He grabbed blindly for her hair, tangled and thick, twisting a hand within it in hopes of hearing the sharp cry of pleasure he always did whenever he had her like this; on her hands and knees and desperate for more. She never failed to disappoint him in that regard, at least.

“Theon,” Kyra gasped, her arms trembling as she struggled to hold herself up. “Gods, please.”

Under other circumstances, he might have teased her a bit and toyed with her, at least for his own enjoyment if not her own eventual satisfaction. Now though, his pleasure was almost upon him and he had no time to waste. He had somewhere to be and couldn’t squander what little time he had left before nightfall. Yara would have his head if he kept her waiting for dinner.

His spare hand gripped at her hips, pulling her closer to him by the ass as her arms gave out beneath her. Theon quickened his movements as her face collided with the pillow beneath her elbows, fucking her with what he could only credit as the stamina of the gods themselves. She let out a guttural sound from her throat as he swiftly readjusted himself on top of her, pushing in and out of her at the deepest angle he could manage from behind. She twisted her head to the side, her eyes squeezed shut and her jaw slack as he took his pleasure from her—she was warm and tight, and gods, did he want to bury his face in her bosom and take her a thousand times after this.

“Theon,” the girl recited as if she was praying at a bloody altar and not getting fucked into her father’s featherbed by a man she met at the marketplace. “Theon, Theon, please.”

He yanked her up by the hair, reveling in the hiss she let out as her back arched with the swift motion. “What do you want?” He muttered into the shell of her ear, his breath hot against her as she heaved with exertion, her hips swiveling helplessly over him in an attempt for _more_. His hand slid from her hair to cup one of her breasts, rolling it about as the pace shifted to one more punishing, more agonizing, but deeper and if the way she was moaning and rocking against him gave him any indication of how she liked it, better. Their bodies were covered in sweat and oils and reeked of sex, but it only heightened the feeling of her clenching around him. “Tell me.”

“Fuck me,” she exhaled sharply, reaching backwards to wind her arms around his neck as he pinched her nipple the gentlest bit. He buried his nose into her neck, inhaling deeply as he began sucking at the skin offered to him. Her words came out even breathier now, urging him to lose himself in her cunt. “Harder, Theon. Fuck me so loud the whole village hears. Make me yours.”

He needed no more encouragement than that.

Theon snapped his hips forward with a grunt, pushing into her as deep as he could manage as she fell back to her hands and knees in front of her. Ever one to oblige with a beautiful girl’s request, he began fucking her with a vigor that had his head lost in the heavens above him. She was still wet for him and getting wetter still, bracing herself on the mattress by her wrists as she moaned aloud. The sound of skin smacking was the only thing he could comprehend with any sense, the only thoughts coursing through his head being that of fervor—and _warm, good, tight, fuck, yes_.

It only took a few more thrusts for his rope to snap. She pushed back against him eagerly, gasping aloud as he withdrew his prick from within her abruptly and continued his rough ministrations with his own hands. It took only a moment for him to spill his seed on the coverlets beneath them, stray droplets hitting his lover’s thighs. As often as she encouraged him to keep going and just peak inside her if he so wished it, he wasn’t fool enough to think that his actions wouldn’t have consequences, no matter how much moon tea she had at her disposal.

It wouldn’t do anyone any good if he got a child on one of his bedwarmers, though he supposed he was technically warming _her_ bed—or her father’s, anyhow. In any case, it was for the best that he didn’t have a dozen bastards running around the village as his uncles likely did.

All of a sudden, soft hands were cupping his cheek and pulling him out of his thoughts, as if beckoning him forward. He couldn’t help his knee-jerk reaction to flinch away from her and froze in place as he took in the sight before him: Kyra, naked as the day she was born, sweat-drenched brown curls falling down her shoulders and a dangerous emotion flickering in her eyes. Her lips were puckered as if she meant to lean forward and claim his lips with her own, though she remained rooted in her spot as she prepared herself for the inevitable rebuffing to come.

Discomfort pressed down on his gut as it became apparent that they were at a stalemate.

“I’m going to leave,” he announced gruffly, averting his eyes from her as he went about redressing himself. Lovemaking was better when it was detached and impersonal, and her insistence on trying to ruin that was grating on his nerves. Gods, where had he even put his breeches in the rush to get his clothes off? The moments afterward were always the most awkward. The worst was with another girl, the fisherman’s daughter, who had tried to nick his coin purse when they were done over a fortnight prior. “When’s your father coming back?”

“Not for hours yet,” her soft voice drew him out of his reverie once more, timid and hopeful in a way that made his stomach clench with anxiety in spite of his poor attempts to make conversation while he searched for his missing articles of clothing. Just as he managed to locate his breeches beneath the bedframe next to his boots, she spoke up. “Stay a little while longer.”

Her brown eyes bore holes into the side of his head as he fumbled to get a foot through the leg of his trousers. Prolonging this would only make it more uncomfortable than it had to be, and gods, did he just want to get home before Yara chewed him out for getting sidetracked at the marketplace again. This was Kyra’s choice; she knew what it meant when she took him to her bed. His intentions were as clear as they could be considering he had bedded her enough times for her to know that he wouldn’t be taking her for a wife anytime in the near future.

“Theon,” she protested, reaching for his hand as if it would make a difference.

He evaded her touch and averted his eyes, recognizing that it would be all the more difficult to leave if he caught a glimpse of her breasts again. Weak as he was, he couldn’t help but look. They were pert on her chest, hardened with the chill of the wind through her window, and for a mad moment a wanting overtook him— to lap his tongue over her rosy nipples until she was crying out to the gods for him to fuck her again and again until the sun rose in the morning...

Just as she was beginning to draw him back in, he had managed to tie the laces of his breeches together with only minimal difficulty. As his gaze slid back up to her face, he found that she was watching him expectantly. Irritation bubbled up within him at the realization that she would have him stay with her here and he had to grit out a refusal once more, this time slightly more on-edge than he was before at the prospect of staying. “I never made you any promises, Kyra.”

_A prince conceived of hate_, the old crone’s voice was resounding in tone, still on his mind after all this time when his father’s body had been fished out of the ocean years ago. He had been a child when he had first heard the hag say the words for herself; to speak the curse of his birth into existence. It was common knowledge that Balon had found his ‘queen’ in capturing a naiad for his own amusement and pleasure. A plaything to impregnate and torment until her escape, horrifying as the thought was. Some would whisper that a nymph had mothered him, though the only monster he had ever known to share his flesh and blood was his own father, Balon. Gone were the days that Theon, in his childlike stupidity, would wander about fountains and rivers searching for a white-haired woman to call ‘mother’— but even so, that aspect of the ceremony had never quite been forgotten. How could it be when it was all he knew of the mother he had never had? The words still plagued him, even now. _Filth made flesh. An abomination to the gods._

Perhaps it had been an omen after all; that the downfall of his family would come with a haggard old woman spewing nonsense at him, and that his father would leave behind an empty legacy along with a decrepit castle and ruined lands. An omen was just a curse with a prettier name. Rodrik and Maron’s deaths were proof of that, the idiots that they were, dying at sea as if they hadn’t been raised on it. He wondered more than once if his mother was floating beneath the waves that pulled his brothers in—if she loathed their existence so deeply that she would choke the life from them herself if she had the chance. He wouldn’t blame her if she did.

“No,” Kyra’s eyes were unreadable, though they seemed to crackle with a fury that he couldn’t bother trying to decipher now. Her lips were pursed when he finally turned back to her, just getting his jerkin on as he reached for his boots beside the bed. Theon slipped them on easily, though he could feel the weight of her glare on him with every move he made. “You didn’t.”

He didn’t have any words to spare her when he passed through the arching doorway of her cottage, retreating back in the direction of the marketplace. Yara would be expecting him for dinner soon enough (was it carp she was hoping for, or trout?) and would wring his neck if he didn’t have anything to show for it by the time the sun set. There was a tense quality to the air around him as he got back on the road leading to the village square, the looming feeling of something creeping up on him, though he couldn’t manage to identify the source of his paranoia.

* * *

Catelyn was lounging atop the dais when Sansa found her, observing the affairs of mortals beneath her like a woman obsessed. It was one of her greatest shortcomings; to want to watch the mortals’ affairs on the ground, to fixate on what little justice she could restore to a world that seemed to devour itself whole without divine intervention. There was the slightest crease between her brows, as if she was torn as to whether to march down to earth and solve the problem for herself, or leave it be for once and return to her divine affairs.

For a fleeting moment, Sansa considered turning around and finding something better to do.

Father was on a hunt with her brothers and sister, and Margaery had gone with them. Jeyne was preoccupied with a task in the Westerlands, having pretended to be a swan in order to catch some scheming king doing some salacious act or another. There seemed to be little to do but seek out the company of her mother. The taste of that morning’s sweetwine still lingered on her breath as she stepped up to take her place at Catelyn’s side. “What’s the matter, Mother?”

The question was asked as sweetly as it always was, her words as honeyed as any pastry she had ever tasted. A fond smile teased at the edges of her mother’s lips though it disappeared within moments as figures moved in the vision before her, a swirling cloud encircling a somber-looking woman as she went about preparing herself dinner. She was a comely girl wearing an ivory dress draped over her lithe figure with her mousy brown hair drawn up into a bun while she fetched some bread for her father. Her kitchens seemed modest as did the rest of her living conditions.

Could she be praying to Catelyn for children? Wealth? Good fortune? The possibilities seemed endless. From time to time, Sansa herself would hear anguished lovers cry out to her for assistance, like a spark shooting through her body and calling to her for intervention. She never could resist a good love story, and there had been a fair share of mortals who had provided her with some to fill her head with. This girl, however, didn’t seem to want for anything but happiness by the looks of it. Sansa watched as she brought a jug of water into the dining room.

It wasn’t what Sansa would credit as entertainment, considering how mundane it all was, but she supposed her mother had to be watching it for a reason.

“It’s that boy again,” Catelyn gritted her teeth as she stared intently at the vision before her, the very picture of fury made into beauty. As if to indicate the source of her rage, she flicked her fingers and another sight graced the cloudy screen before her as if it knew exactly how to pinpoint the bane of her existence within a moment’s notice. “I cannot abide by this anymore.”

Sansa fought back the amused smile that began to curve at her lips, instead focusing on the man in question. She had heard about him for years on end—the heartbreaker, the deviant, the fool—yet she had never seen him for herself. He was youthful. Attractive, even, in a certain light. He had a sack of game fish slung over his shoulder as he trudged back home, whistling to himself in a carefree manner that only caused more color to rush to her mother’s cheeks in her rage.

“What do you intend to do with him?” She couldn’t tear her eyes away from him as he strolled along the path to his home, sun-kissed hair seeming to glisten as he smirked to himself. As far as mortals were concerned, he had piqued her interest. What was it that drew women to him, Sansa wondered, but his smile? His confidence, perhaps? The notion that any of the heartbroken women he had left in his wake could change his true nature and warp it to suit their own needs?

She tilted her head as she observed him for his actions, his faults, his loyalties, his loneliness.

He was reckless, it seemed, but not monstrous. She had seen enough monsters in her time to know when a man was evil or simply a fool. Sansa tilted her head as she watched him kick a pebble along the cobbled pathway, absentmindedly biting his lower lip as he strolled home.

Would he fall to his knees before her as all her previous suitors had done, if she came to him now with wide eyes and a maiden-like disposition? Be they other deities or mortals, it seemed that men were incapable of developing true feelings for another without one of her arrows piercing their skin. From her experience, romantic love was entirely unsatisfactory. It was plagued with lies and deceit and hidden truths veiled beneath a sickly-sweet demeanor.

She brought eros upon those unwitting and open to love but never to anyone for her own needs, nor was she about to start now. If she visited him, it would be without a weapon that would prompt devotion that was superficial in nature. She would come before him without any falsities; only as herself, as that was the only form of love she would accept after all she had endured.

It was only fair that mortals be able to trick themselves into thinking they were happy for at least a small portion of their short existences; she would not interfere with their delusions, no matter how world-wary she was. Love was perhaps the most dangerous battlefield of them all. But she would not force a man to fall in love with her. Whether it was for the integrity of their own autonomy or due to her pride, she still couldn’t be sure. Mayhaps it was a combination of both.

“I’ll force him to fall in love with a beast,” Catelyn asserted, though there was a hitch of hesitance accompanying her words. It was as if she didn’t think the punishment suited the crime of causing lovelorn women distress. If he truly fell in love with even the ugliest of creatures, would he even care that they were hideous, Sansa couldn’t help but wonder. “A kraken or… a gorgon.”

Sansa’s eyes flashed at the suggestion. “You mean to kill him?”

Her fascination with the man wasn’t quite so easy to decipher as she thought it would be. The dread that swirled around her stomach at the thought of him walking willingly to his own death in a lover’s embrace was unmistakable. There was something about him—a quality in his eyes, a deep blue flecked with greens and greys and the slightest smattering of gold, that awoke something within her. It might have been boredom; it might have been curiosity. It might have been hope. Something in her heart tugged her downward, as if willing her to spare him a painful death just in hopes of catching a glimpse of his visage for herself. She wanted to captivate him as he had captivated others, and perchance, that would be punishment enough to satisfy her mother.

His eyes were soulful, she noticed, now that she was paying him more mind. Beautiful, even. Those were eyes she could drown in given the chance. For a moment, or perhaps it was a lifetime, Sansa allowed herself to retreat into her fantasies. Would those eyes look upon her and see a goddess? A beauty? A challenge? She hadn’t allowed a man to touch her in centuries, not since her last lover in a string of disappointments demonstrated the shallow depths of surface-level adoration for her enough to put her off it. Unbidden, she found herself craving his touch.

She wanted him to worship her, and want her, and _love_ her, if he was capable of such a thing.

“It makes no difference to me whether he lives or dies,” Catelyn conceded, finally sparing her daughter an exhausted glance now that the storm of her anger had passed. “Only that he stops.”

Was it not fair that he be afforded one last chance?

Sansa’s heart thumped relentlessly as she moistened her lips and reached forward to gingerly grasp her mother’s hand with her own. “Allow me to mete out his punishment, Mother.”

* * *

A rustling sound drew him from his slumber.

Theon opened his eyes blearily, trying to make sense of his environment as he blinked himself awake. It was still dark outside, though there was a nip in the air that had him burrowing deeper into his quilt. His eyes adjusted to the darkness within moments and before long, the source of the problem was identified. He couldn’t help but groan with frustration at the realization that he would have to get up to solve it. The window had somehow swung open overnight, useless as this villa was. Everything was worn-down here, right on the brink of breaking down entirely.

It took a fair about of self-restraint to get himself out of bed rather than wallow in the cold overnight so that he could enjoy the few hours left before dawn broke. He stumbled to the offending window, his hands groping along the pane to get it shut once more. The last draft of cool air that hit him before he turned the latch had him clenching his cheeks and gnashing his teeth together, the feeling of it as unpleasant as the cold always was around this time of year. Times like this were when he regretted that he slept in the nude. He could have worn smallclothes, but it wasn’t like it mattered anymore. Only he and Yara lived here now.

An empty house for a broken family.

He began to turn on his feet when his eyes were suddenly shrouded completely in darkness. It was a piece of fabric, cloaking his eyes from seeing whichever intruder had managed to stow away in his room without his knowledge. Theon warred with his instincts to flinch away from the stranger or call out for his sister but failed to do either when the invader’s gentle hands steadied his own. They were delicate—a woman’s hands, he could tell— and nimble, encasing his from where he had lifted them into the air defensively. Her thumb rubbed along his knuckles, as soft as rose petals against his skin. Against all sense and reason, he was soothed by the action.

“Hush, Theon,” a voice murmured into his ear, as sweet as any sound he had ever heard.

His heart was caught in his throat as he felt her begin to tie the object obscuring his vision around the back of his head. It was a blindfold of some sort, richer a fabric than anything he had ever owned. He could feel himself trembling as the object was fastened securely over him. He couldn’t see a thing, not even when he squinted as he would whenever his sister would tie her scarves over his head and charge him to find her in their games of hide and seek as children.

“Are you going to kill me?” He asked after a moment of excruciating silence, and it was a wonder that he managed to keep his voice even. Was she an assassin of some sort, sent here to toy with him before putting her blade to his neck? He attempted to picture what she looked like to no avail, unable to pin her voice down from what little she had spoken to him already. Perhaps she was a nymph, charged to seduce and strangle him before he could do so much as see her.

Her breath tickled the shell of his ear as his body began to betray his mind. She smelled even sweeter than she sounded, and he could feel himself begin to harden at the sudden vulnerability of his circumstance. The panic building up within him at the loss of one of his senses seemed to dissipate with the woman’s silence, as if she was as nerve wracked as he was at their proximity. Everything felt hot to the touch, like he would burn and be glad of it if only to touch her once.

“I’m here to save you,” she whispered, fingers trickling down his side like water droplets. He wet his lips as his pulse raced at the speed of the fastest chariot he had ever known; faster still, like a wild stallion or a rabid boar looking for some unfortunate man to spear in the gut. Her voice was like silk and syrup, and everything addictive in the world. “I’m here to love you.”

“To love me?” Theon repeated, his mouth dry and voice hoarse, unable to conceive that he wasn’t dreaming. Was this some sort of trick? A game this stranger was playing with him? One of Yara’s lovers, come to taunt him for his gullibility? A former flame here to enact revenge?

Her palm grazed along his abdomen, drifting downward until she was cupping his manhood. It had stirred to life the moment she spoke first and would have been humiliating if not for the eager way her fingers teased along the base of his cock, squeezing as if she was as eager as he was to take whatever pleasure he could get. Her cheek pressed against the side of his face and he couldn’t stop himself from leaning into her, his hips thrusting into her hand of their own accord.

“Who are you?” He choked out as she began twisting her hand around his cock, breathing a silent thanks to whichever god deemed him worthy for _this_, of all the men in the world.

“Love,” she murmured back to him without a beat passing between them. Her voice sounded something like beauty, whatever that meant. Windchimes, the ocean tides, the taste of honey and sugar on his lips… she seemed to encompass all of it with naught but a word for him. The hand jerking him slowed around his prick as if she was still deciding what she wanted to do with it. “Eros. Sansa. I go by many names. I’ve come for you, Theon, if you’ll have me.”

“I’ll have you,” he blurted out immediately, giving himself no room for hesitation. Her hand felt magical, scorching even, on him and he fancied he might die if he woke up from this dream anytime soon. He could feel her smile against his cheek and even with his eyes completely incapacitated, he knew she was the most beautiful woman he had ever known. He had heard the name before, whispered by children, but he could only assume it was an alias she had taken on for the sake of a late-night dalliance. He wouldn’t fault her for that, not when she was pressing the softest of kisses along his jaw, her lips pillow soft as he somehow knew they would be. “I will.”

Every touch singed him where he stood, a trail of fire left where her fingers spun over his skin. A whine built in his throat at the frustration bursting within him. His cock was jutting out, fully erect for a woman whose face he couldn’t even see, as she began pumping him once more. All he wanted to do was throw her onto his featherbed and make his home inside of her, to feel her writhe against him and cry his name so loudly that even the heavens could hear it. He wanted this stranger more than he had wanted anyone before, her true identity be damned.

“Be mine,” she breathed out and he could feel his helpless hands still with confusion from where they were blindly attempting to feel her. “From this day until the end of your days.”

“As…” he paused, unable to wrap his head around whatever odd dance they were engaged in now. Was she asking him to make her his _wife_? He frowned bemusedly, praying for her touch once more as soon as she withdrew her hands in favor of roving them over the muscles of his torso. “I don’t understand,” he tested one of the names she had given him, “Sansa.” 

“Simple,” the woman explained as if she was a dutiful teacher meting out her lessons to her dimmest student. For a moment he was rendered dumbstruck, wondering if he had misjudged the intruder after all. Was she even mortal at all? This sort of thing wasn’t unheard of but never had he thought it would happen to him. Why would any sort of deity take an interest in him? No, she had to be a trickster, playing some sort of roleplaying game with him for her own amusement. “You’ll be mine and I’ll be yours. Why do you think I am here, Theon, if not for divine will?”

The turn the conversation had taken had successfully given him whiplash.

“What do you want from me?” He croaked, lifting his hands upward in an attempt to feel her again and replicate the magic from earlier. The spot where her cheek had pressed against him was still crackling from her touch, and he longed to feel her hair (probably long and silken) slip through his fingers. Unable to hold it in, he played along with her pretense. “Why me?”

“My mother wants to kill you,” Sansa murmured and before he could question the statement, she was taking him into her hand once more. The urge to rip his blindfold off was overwhelming, especially with the realization that the stranger who called herself ‘love’ was within arm’s reach. She was still behind him, it seemed, and pressed a light kiss to his shoulder as if they were seasoned lovers and not strangers who, quite literally, met in the night. “I couldn’t bear to see you die.”

Mortifying as it was, a pang of yearning seemed to settle at the pit of his stomach at her words. The act of telling him that she didn’t want him to die shouldn’t have sparked such a reaction within him and yet, here he was, touched to the core because a girl didn’t wish him dead.

“I only ask one thing from you,” she pressed another kiss against his cheek and his heart couldn’t help the lurch it gave at the affection. The combination of the kiss with the twisting motions she was making with her hand around his member almost brought him straight to an embarrassingly premature peak- it would have, if not for the curiosity her request sparked in him. “Only one.”

“Anything,” he found himself agreeing like the idiot he was.

“My face,” she murmured, and the very sound of her voice sent another thrill through him. There was something about her that seemed to weaken any resolve he might have had if any other woman had snuck into his room and set out to seduce him with scorching kisses, strange words, and even stranger conditions to bed her under. “You mustn’t look upon my face, not ever. And I will be yours.”

It was a simple enough request but- “why?”

“It is what I ask of you,” Sansa declared firmly, and it was as if her words had pierced straight into his soul. The resolution in her tone only heightened his curiosity to her true identity. “If you refuse, no harm will come to you, by my hand or my mother’s and you will never hear from me again. I swear it to you, by the Old Gods and the New. It is your choice.”

“No,” he protested immediately, desperate to have her—or however much of her she was willing to give him. If she left him now, he wasn’t sure that he would be able to live with himself. Without allowing himself even a moment to think through the consequences of his words, he swore his oath into the open air. “I’ll marry you, I’ll- I’ll do anything. I swear it, Sansa, I do.”

A hand cupped his cheek, turning him in his place.

He allowed himself to be guided where she pleased him to go, his heart feeling fit to burst at the sudden attention she was bestowing him with. It was folly to swear himself to a woman he had never seen before and even madder to assume that the promise was binding at all considering that she was likely just a peasant girl who fancied herself a goddess, but he had never wanted anyone so much in his life. If he had to make a handful of promises to have her, he would do it.

Soft lips were pressing urgently against his own and the world around him seemed to slow.

He had never felt so good, never felt so _much._ at once.

“Sansa,” he pushed back against her mouth eagerly as if reciting a prayer, “Sansa, Sansa, Sansa.”

His knees hit the back of the bed before he could comprehend what was happening, instantly allowing himself to sink into the featherbed so long as she kept doing what she was doing. His back had only been flat against the surface for seconds before her weight rested comfortably atop him, her legs (so much _longer _than he anticipated) settling on either side of his hips.

She was wearing a gown of some sort judging by the flimsy quality to the edges of the short negligee, and there was nothing underneath it. He thrust upwards, finding the slightest bit of relief now that he could actually feel her on top of him. Her quim rubbed against his cock as they resumed the languid kiss from a moment earlier, his hands greedily touching every expanse of skin he could find. If he was going to drown in a woman’s touch, it might as well be hers.

Theon grabbed her ass as if his hands were meant to hold it, squeezing both cheeks as he drew her closer to him, nipping at her lips all the while. He had just managed to groan her name aloud, unconcerned at the prospect of waking his sister with a woman who could very well actually be a deity rutting up against him, when his words were swallowed by her mouth once more.

She kissed him hard and fast, as if she knew everything he liked without having to be told first.

Even as she detached their lips and angled his cock at her entrance, he had never felt so close to a partner before. He had fucked his fair share of woman but none of them had been quite like this. It took until that moment for him to comprehend the events of the past few hours, a traitorously lucid part of his mind wondering if there was any truth to her story at all, especially in that her mother wanted him dead for some inane reason. His brows furrowed briefly at the thought that this wasn’t just an elaborate fantasy he had somehow dreamed up, and was truly happening.

And then she was sinking down on him with a cry, setting a tantalizing pace for them as his hands flew to her hips, desperately seeking something—relief, salvation, love… he wasn’t sure what it was that he was searching for, but he knew for a fact that only she could give it to him.

She took his length as a true lover would, as someone well-versed in pleasure and its arts, and it drove him half mad. Her hands settled at his chest as she rode him to her heart’s desire, gasping and moaning with every thrust he gave. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before; he had been with women in a variety of ways and positions, but never had he felt so… _whole_ before.

Theon fucked her for what could have been moments or years, his hands eventually migrating from her hips to squeeze at her breasts. They were round and supple, and her nipples were hard as he took them gingerly between his fingers. Somehow, they were all he expected to be and more, and he could construct a perfect image of what they looked like in his mind, bouncing erratically as she moved up and down his shaft with the enthusiasm of a seasoned lover.

Time passed as if they were underwater, her ministrations only speeding up as he snapped his hips up to meet hers fervently, unable to get enough of her. He tried to imagine her face, her lips, her breasts, her cunt, all in one woman, but nothing he could picture for himself did her justice.

Releasing her breasts, he grabbed at her buttocks once more, fucking up into her more forcefully now that they were edging closer and closer to what he had been praying for since she had first blindfolded him. He could feel her bring her fingers to her pearl as she fucked herself on him, able to feel her elbow graze against his abdomen as she began making circular motions to bring herself closer to peak. He felt everything at once—how hot and slick she was around him, how one of her hands was kneading rhythmically into his chest as she propped herself up using him, how the tips of her hair were brushing against his pelvis as she moved, her toes curled against his calf as she lost herself in their lovemaking, how she moved even more frantically as she edged closer and closer to her peak… vibrations seemed to course through them both as his fingers fumbled to grasp at the side of her face while her rotating began to quicken in her haste.

He urged her down to kiss him once more, his nails digging half-moons into her buttocks as the other hand twined through the back of her hair, pulling at it lightly as she released an almost-melodious moan into his mouth. She pulsated around him rapidly as she peaked, the feeling of her orgasm shaking through him as if he was truly seeing divinity for the first time.

The groan he released was strangled as their desperate kiss devolved into one that encompassed eroticism and sloppiness in nature. Sansa, Love, Eros, whatever she was named, leaned her forehead against him as he came into her harder than he had ever done in his life. The sensations he felt upon him as he peaked were otherworldly, leaving him more satiated than ever before.

What had he done to deserve this?

The heated kisses evolved into something more ardent as they came to, a languid mingling of tongues as Theon clutched his new bride against him, still fully sheathed within her. He sucked a bloom into her neck as she relaxed against him, his hands roving over her back and ass, and legs and hips, and breasts and stomach—there was nothing he didn’t want to touch, especially considering that he wasn’t entirely sure about how long this would actually last. Would she be gone in the morning? In a fortnight? How long would he get to have her like this?

“My love,” she breathed against the nook of his neck as she caught her breath, and it felt like he had truly ascended to an immortal plane.

* * *

Theon awoke in a foreign bed, cushioned by velvets and silk and more pillows than he knew how to count upon just waking up from what felt like a year-long slumber. He sat up and scooted backward, noting that there were only more cushions behind him, at varying levels as if to flaunt its decadence and wealth.

He moved to yank the fabric shielding his eyes off on impulse, panic beginning to set in at the realization that he wasn’t at the villa anymore. There was the tiniest bit of brightness framing his eyes, as if there was sunlight hitting the black fabric directly, though he couldn’t see it to be certain.

A soft hand prevented him from removing it with a touch so gentle that it was difficult to reconcile that it wasn’t a figment of his own imagination.

“Remember your promise, my love,” a woman’s voice whispered, her fingers dancing along his outer hand, as if she would remove them in an instant if he chose to go back on his word.

The events of the previous night came to him in flashes; pictures that he couldn’t see yet could feel as if they were ingrained in his mind forever. He had sworn to her that he wouldn’t look at her, and yet, he wanted nothing more than to see the face of the woman who had fucked him into the heavens the night prior. It would have been so easy to simply tear the cloth off her and ravish her for moons to come, her own insecurities about her appearance be damned. Was she so ugly, he wondered, that she felt the need to forbid him from looking upon her face at all?

Theon may have been a superficial man once, but any woman who could make love like that would be beautiful no matter how disfigured she was. He had half a mind to reassure her of his inexplicable attraction to her when her fingers curled around his own and began guiding his hand to the mound between her legs. Gods, who was this woman and where had she been all his life?

He wanted to ask her a dozen questions, and more thereafter. Who was she? Why had she chosen him? Why did she feel the need for these charades? How had she gotten him to (presumably) her home overnight without waking him? Or Yara? What was she planning on doing with him?

By the time that his fingers dipped into her wetness, he couldn’t bring himself to say anything at all, instead shifting closer to her to get a better angle on the treasure before him. The motion assisted him somewhat with his spatial recognition; he was leaning against a headboard just as soft as the feathered pillows on every side of him, and it seemed that he was in the center of the bed rather than favoring one side or another. His lover’s breasts were pressed against his shoulder as he began pumping in and out of her, and she seemed to be laying on her side.

“Let me taste you,” he pleaded with her, as if he didn’t know how desperate his desire to feast on her was until he had spoken the words into existence, and for a moment, she stilled.

He thought to apologize for his presumptions—perhaps she only wanted him to do her bidding as she decreed it of him—when he felt her shift in her spot. Annoyance rippled within him at the pesky blindfold’s interference with his circumstances. If he could see the expressions play out on her face, he would know what to say to properly please her. If he could meet her gaze with his own, he could pull her close to him with the certainty of a man who knew what he was doing.

Before he had much more time to anguish about his impairment, she was straddling him once more, this time lightly pushing him into laying on his back before she crawled up his body. His mouth was dry with anticipation, wondering how she would surprise him now. It was impossible to forget how she had ridden him the night before, hands braced on his chest as she took him deep inside of her. The thought of having her once more had him hardening again, needing some relief to the carnal frustration that had come to him as she had. Sansa, Eros, _Love_.

Theon could just barely register her scent, sweet and fragrant, before she was kneeling over him, her legs making a home on either side of his face. She seemed to hesitate for a moment, a show of uncharacteristic diffidence, as she hovered over his willing mouth. For a woman who had proclaimed herself to be love itself, she was surprisingly reserved in taking her own pleasure.

He tilted his nose upward to urge her to trust in him, encouraging her to sit on his face without hesitation, his eager hands grasping at her hips to bring her fully against his mouth.

Her gasp of surprised delight was all he needed to begin lapping at her furiously, smirking victoriously into her quim between licks when she tightened her thighs around him. It took only moments for her to comfortably settle in her position on his face, now grinding up against him with a growing boldness that he wished he could look upon with his own eyes.

For now, her low moans and the slow rocking of her hips against his mouth would suffice.

He clutched her ass closer to him as her movements devolved into an inconsistent rhythm, one that indicated to him that she was enjoying him just as he was enjoying her. Her cries were like a symphony to his ears, pounding and festering in his mind in a manner that was addicting. Theon didn’t think he had ever reveled in a partner’s pleasure as much as he was with her, with eros, with his wife if her story held any truth to it. He couldn’t find it in himself to doubt any aspect of what she had told him when her cunt tasted like the nectar of gods, sticky against his lips as his tongue delved deeper into her, prodding for salvation in a way that was surely sacrilegious.

Sansa swiveled her hips around and round as if she could do this for the rest of her life. If that was what she wanted of him, he was almost certain that he could manage it.

He moaned into her core as she began clenching around him, her walls closing in and out as she peaked. He feasted on her through the entire ordeal, his brows drawn together as he concentrated his efforts into savoring every last lick he had of her. Amid her cries of oh, oh, _oh_, he began sucking on her pearl, kissing it with a vigor he hadn’t even realized he possessed.

There was scarce time to recover from the experience before she withdrew from him, wiping at his lips tenderly with her fingers, as if she truly cherished him. She didn’t even know him and every touch felt like an act of worship—it was overwhelming and erotic in its own way, and as she was deciding her next move, he took his opportunity to take her by surprise.

With a smooth motion, he had flipped himself to linger above her, unable to resist the temptation of taking a nipple into his mouth and flicking his tongue over the nub twice before beginning to pepper more kisses down her torso. She welcomed his tongue, her hands twining through his hair as he lined his cock up with her entrance, still pressing stray kisses against her stomach as he began pushing into her. She gave way to him easily, tightening her hold on his hair as he drove deep into her. When she hooked her legs over his hips and gasped his name aloud, he couldn’t fathom wanting to be anywhere else than here—near her, with her, inside her…

Every moan he drew from her made him feel like he was born for this. He was born to fuck her, to love her, to do whatever it was that she wanted from him, no matter what it was.

* * *

Sansa cupped the warm glass in her hand as she made her way back into her bedroom, feeling more contented than ever before. For all of the trials she had endured in love before, this was entirely new to her. Theon was a mortal, not a deity or a creature of the Underworld.

A treacherous part of her fractured heart was singing songs of romance and destiny, certain that she had found the other half of her heart at last. She had come here to take a lover and yet, she had instead bonded herself to him in an act that would soon be known throughout the heavens. It wasn’t uncommon for deities to fixate on a mortal who was especially beautiful or clever or devout, but marrying one in the dead of night didn’t quite have the same precedent that taking one as a lover had. Sansa wondered how her mother would react to it—if she was watching her now as she fetched hot tea for her lover, still in bed and wrapped in their used sheets. She would likely be furious to see her daughter taking a man she so loathed into her bed and heart.

Robb had fallen in love with a mortal thrice now, not seeming to learn from his mistakes no matter how many jokes other gods made at his expense. The last woman had been nearly half a century ago and he had spent every moment until the end of her days by her side. She was a nurse from Volantis with brown eyes he had composed poem after poem about, much to all of their dismay. It had taken him decades to fully recover after the girl’s death, it was true, but the heart was fickle. Before Talisa and Roslin, he had loved a commoner said to have been more beautiful than Cersei herself; he had come to Jeyne Westerling’s castle in disguise with his heart on his sleeve, and had wed her by the next morning. She died birthing his son, a demigod made immortal the moment he left his mother’s womb, and so the cycle continued.

Lovers came and went for gods and monsters alike, and she would be no exception to the rule.

Still, she couldn’t help the lurch her heart gave when Theon straightened somewhat in their bed, alert at the sound of her approaching footsteps.

After all the ways her heart had been mangled and beaten, did she not deserve this happiness? The thrill of a springtime lover, a first true love to keep dear to her heart for centuries to come… It felt as though her heart was a mosaic of scars and insecurities, even after centuries spent recovering from ill-advised dalliances with gods and demi-gods. She wasn’t fool enough to think he loved her for anything but the pleasure she had given him but something about him reassured her of three things: he wouldn’t hurt her, he wouldn’t lie to her, nor would he string her along for her outward beauty until he tired of her and abused her love as the other men in her lifetime had.

“I brought you tea,” she informed him quietly, delighting in the grin that overtook his face at the sound of her voice—as if this foolish, foolish boy was truly captivated by whatever idea of her he had crafted for himself in his head. Nevertheless, she couldn’t help her own smile at seeing his, recognizing now why so many others like her found comfort with mortal lovers.

He was _real_—so much more real than any ethereal being she had ever lain with before.

He was different from the others. He had nothing to gain from her, none of the ulterior motives or spiteful tendencies she had seen from Joffrey and Harry, nor did he have any of the darkness lingering beneath him as the creatures of the night she had once made the mistake of bedding had done. He was worthy, she knew, no matter what Catelyn thought of him. Why should it be a crime for a human to do the very same things that gods had songs written about them for doing?

Theon reached out to take the cup from her, immediately lifting the rim to his lips as if he was truly parched. She would have to teach him how to navigate her estate soon, though it would prove a trial for him with the blindfold on. His smile broadened as he tasted the concoction for himself, finally slowing down for long enough to actually process what he was drinking. “It’s mixed with honey and something else,” he murmured thoughtfully. “Something sweet, right?”

“Lemon thyme,” Sansa whispered, her heart startling in her chest when he reached blindly for her hand. He wanted her, truly _wanted_ her, for reasons she couldn’t begin to comprehend.

Her initial attraction to him had been one of rebellion and a craving for something new; with his chestnut-honey hair and dangerous smile, he had been an alluring prospect for a dive back into romance. By taking him as hers, no one could harm him, at least from the heavens. Now, though, she found her heart thumping as if it beat just to see him smile, and nearly squeezed out of her chest when she brought laughter to his lips. It had never been like this with a lover before; light, carefree, _good_… She watched on from where she was perched on the edge of their bed as he drank the rest of his tea eagerly, unable to help the affection blossoming in her chest now.

When he used their attached hands to tug her forward again, she laughed under her breath. Sansa smirked as she sidled forward and into his lap, already guessing what he had a mind for. Mortals typically weren’t this insatiable from what she had been told, but she supposed it was a good thing if he meant to keep up with her. She yelped as her world tilted on his axis, realizing too late that he was already in the process of leaning backward, his teacup discarded beside him.

When his head collided with the feathered pillow underneath him, he brought her down with him, using a hand to cradle the back of her head. He kept his hand firm as he reclined back, gently urging her to press her cheek against his chest. She looked up at him questioningly, wondering what it was that he wanted now that they were laying together if not intimacy.

“I want to hold you,” he murmured, his hand dropping to rub along her back. “Is that okay?”

She relaxed against him and released a shuddering breath that she hadn’t realized she had been holding. The gesture dazzled her, plain as it was, and was enough to sweep her off her feet had she been standing. Sansa strained to respond to him in an even voice. “Yes.”

* * *

“My sister rules over the battlefield,” she explained to him as she lounged on their chaise, her head laid on his lap contentedly. They had been in the palace for upwards of a week, though the days seemed to trickle away as they grew more consumed with one another. He popped a grape in his mouth, listening raptly as he always did when she described Winterfell to him. He believed her story now that he’d had time to adjust to it, still stunned that he was keeping the company of a goddess. “Her lover rules over craftsmen, fire, and artificers alike. They found one another close to…” she paused for a moment to gather her thoughts. “Two hundred years ago.”

Theon exhaled sharply at the number, and she cracked a smile at his surprise. Compared to a human lifetime, it likely sounded unbelievable to him. “That’s a long time to be with someone.”

Sansa’s laughter was tinkling as she looked up at him, utterly charmed with him. “It’s not so long where gods are concerned,” she mused, eyes sliding shut as Theon’s hand began carding gently through her hair. “My parents have been by each other’s side for close to a thousand years now. Arya’s loved him for far longer than either of them will admit, but it’s who she is. He was her first lover and by the looks of it, might be her last. Dreadfully romantic, isn’t it?”

Theon was quiet, mulling something over in his head to himself.

After a moment, he spoke, his thumb brushing against her ear as he continued playing with her hair. “Have you taken a lover before?” A beat. “Other than me, that is.”

“Yes,” she leaned into his touch, trying to gauge his emotions by his physical reactions to her confession. His throat bobbed as he swallowed and he wet his lips, but he didn’t pull away. He did not seem… jealous, necessarily, but cautious. “You’re the first in a long time, Theon.”

He refrained from asking her to elaborate any further on her romantic past, seeming to know better than to tread into that territory. He merely twirled a lock of her hair around his finger, his touch as tender as it always was in spite of the subject-matter. They had spoken about his own romantic past once, or lack thereof, but her own was a stain better left in the past. The question that crackled between them was one of his own; she could tell that it was on his mind, though he never voiced it aloud. _Why me?_ In truth, she wasn’t sure what drew her to him aside from the convenience of a lonely heart and a conscience unwilling to allow him to die. All she knew was that their mutual happiness was contagious and that she never wanted to be rid of it ever.

“And how do I…” he seemed to struggle to find the words to suit his question, which drew Sansa’s attention to him instantly. There was a thickness to his voice as he weaved his fingers through her hair, scratching her scalp lightly. “-_compare_ to the others you’ve known?”

Sansa barked a laugh then, taken entirely by surprise at the question and his stern demeanor while asking it, her stomach fluttering in remembrance of their morning in bed. “Gods, Theon!”

“I mean it,” Theon tilted his head back as he laughed, though there was a tinge of red to his cheeks. He looked so young when he smiled like that, wild and unrestrained, and it set her aflame all over again. To make matters worse for her, his voice took on a lower tone as he spoke, as if confiding a secret in her. “I want to be the best you’ve ever had, oh _divine_ lover of mine.”

She bit her lower lip excitedly as she looked up at him, propping herself up the slightest bit so that she could rest her elbows on the fabric of the chaise behind her. Their faces were almost leveled with each other, the telltale smirk on his face tipping her off to his facetiousness, blended little by little with the truth as Theon often did in serious moments. “Who says you aren’t already?”

Their lips slid together easily and yet again, she felt herself falling.

* * *

He often spoke about his family over dinner, reminiscing over his childhood with Yara and the brothers he had lost when he was barely old enough to understand what it meant to lose one’s family to death. For so long, he had thought that they somehow managed to cheat their lives as _Balon’s sons_ and managed to find their mother somewhere out in the sea, living contented lives among the naiads and sirens and merwomen alike. It didn’t take long to realize they had died.

“I never knew her,” he murmured, scraping his forkful of roasted eggplant along the bottom of his plate before lifting it to his lips. “I was told she was a nymph held prisoner by my father for decades. He caught her like she was some sort of prize,” he sneered, emotion crackling in his voice for a woman he had never even met. Hearing the unabridged version of the story had marked a turning point in his relationship with his father from one of indifference to enmity and scorn. “He forced her to give him children, enslaved her, tortured her for years until a woman freed her from Pyke. They dove into the ocean together and no one saw them again.”

He had seen murals of it in the village square as an adult, when the horrors of the story had somehow evolved into a myth that Harlaw’s children would tell each other, of their beautiful white-haired naiad queen and her sorrowful lover who had become a cruel, hateful king in her absence, as if he hadn’t been a vicious cad for his entire life. As if cruelty hadn’t been how he had taken her in the first place. The stories painted them as star-crossed lovers who were torn apart by the circumstances of their birth, which almost made it worse to witness for himself.

For all he knew, she could have died in her fall. She might have just been a lowborn prisoner he had taken from a neighboring island to torment until she flung herself into the sea in a suicide attempt when Theon was just a babe in his cradle. Regardless of her mortality, she was still lost to him, never even attempting to seek out the son she had left behind when she jumped.

She could have been anyone, and she could have been no one, and nothing would answer his questions no matter how hard he searched for them.

“That’s how the story goes anyhow,” he shrugged nonchalantly, popping the vegetable into his mouth as Sansa’s silence resounded through the vast room, too large to accommodate the pair of them by their lonesome. It was almost comical considering they were sitting directly next to one another. “I don’t even know if it’s true but… I suppose it’s all I have. I used to think that she would find me someday. That she would want me, even if no one else did.”

Her thoughtful silence lasted only moments before she was lifting his chin up to look at her, as if he could see anything underneath his blindfold. He allowed her to do as she pleased, wanting nothing more than to gather her in his arms and press his head against her heart. “I want you.”

“I cherish you,” she continued, and his heart seemed to spill out of his chest while he helplessly melted under the care that accompanied her touch. She didn’t pull away as he feared she would or say anything to break his heart. She pressed the lightest of kisses against his cheek as his chin wobbled the slightest bit, overwhelmed by the depth of her affection for him. What had he done to deserve her devotion? “I do.”

Her kiss was sweet on his lips this time, as it had always been.

He wondered if his mother would like Sansa, wherever she was in the world.

* * *

Theon had grown accustomed to wearing the blindfold over his eyes by his third week with her, now having taken to accomplishing most tasks with naught but a servant’s occasional helping hand and a walking stick Sansa had provided him with early into his stay in the estate. It was a reluctant gift, Sansa had told him, from her mother. He couldn’t fathom what it would be like to spend the rest of his days here, though… it had been weeks since he had gone anywhere other than the marketplace a handful of times and home once to assure his sister that he wasn’t dead.

They were secluded from society here, sequestered off from any prying eyes and free to indulge in each other whenever they so desired. He was quite certain he never would tire of her—every kiss left him breathless and eager for more, as if she was a lure and he was the idiot fish drawn to her. Though she had been in his life for less than a moon’s turn, it was near impossible to imagine it without her. She was different from any of the girls he had bedded in the past; somehow he had known that from their first meeting, but now he was certain that she had a piece of his soul buried deep within her own, ever-present and aching for release whenever she was near.

As if his thoughts had summoned her to him, his ears perked up at the sound of her bare feet lightly treading along the marble of the room. Unbidden, his lips curved into a smile as he heard the telltale shuffling of towels and discarded clothing to indicate that she would be sharing his bath with him. Of all of the fates he could have fallen victim to, this was the sweetest of them all.

He waded in her direction, reaching his hands out in front of him so that he didn’t collide with the edge of the tub. She stepped closer to him, running a hand through the water to judge its temperature for herself. He preferred it a little warmer than she did, but it seemed to suffice for her, as she was soon clambering into the bath with him, splashing water onto him in the process.

“Something is on your mind,” Sansa stated, her hands cupping his cheeks tenderly as she paddled closer to him. He instinctively allowed his hands to reach for her waist, pulling her close to him all the while, and felt his muscles relax somewhat at the cool press of her lips against his forehead. Theon’s eyes slid shut at the contact, immediately warming to her touch. “What is it?”

There was no point in lying to her, not when she was more understanding than he could have ever dreamed she would be.

“I was thinking about my sister,” he admitted, nudging his nose forward to brush against hers. It was a tad longer than his, he could tell, but it was more graceful. She let out a contended sound as they stood with one another, nude body pressed against nude body. They were one, in that sense—tethered to one another, no matter where they were and what obstacles presented themselves to them. She was his as he was hers, despite the short time they had known each other. How could he not adore her after all she had given him in body, soul, and mind?

“You aren’t a prisoner here, Theon,” Sansa whispered to him as he traced patterns into her hips with his thumbs, her arms looping around his neck comfortably. There was a hint of hesitance to her voice, as if she feared that she was unwittingly keeping him captive here and that he wasn’t here of his own volition. The notion, ridiculous as it was, seemed to liven in her anytime Pyke came into question, as if she didn’t realize that he would choose her over a wasteland of an island any day if presented with the choice. “I can bring her here to see you if you would like. Unless you want to go see her yourself. Tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you.”

Deciding to leave the matter unspoken for the time being, he reached a hand out to glide his fingers over her face. He could feel an amused smile tugging at her lips as he attempted to memorize every plane of her face from her cheekbones to her jaw to her nose to her lips—those beautiful lips that curved into a cupid’s bow— to her chin, unable to fathom that she could love him of everyone in the world, be he man or god. Theon swiped his thumbs over her eyelids gently, careful not to disturb her with his touch, and marveled at the imagery he had created of her in his head. She was beautiful, he had never been surer of it. How could she not be?

There was no need for words as he kissed her on the lips, nodding as the bathwater around them rippled with the action. She slid her hand into the water as if she knew what he wanted already, as if she craved to feel him as much as he craved her. He was already hard, jutting out against her thigh in the lukewarm heat of the tub. Before long, she was squeezing at the base of his cock lightly, a glimpse of what was soon to come. Theon sighed against her mouth, dragging it down to press open-mouthed kisses against her jaw with a hand already beginning to roam over her back.

Abruptly, she turned in her spot, pushing her ass against his pelvis as if to coax him to do something about their change in position. Unable to resist a good tease, Theon followed her lead and pulled her close, his length pressing urgently against her ass as he stood slightly straighter in his spot. It proved difficult with his inability to see her but within moments, she was lifting herself up and assisting him in sliding into her with a firm hand. She was already slick, somehow ready for him as if she had oiled herself up for this very purpose prior to joining him.

The feeling was overwhelming, as it always was.

He pushed through her folds easily, his hands adventuring upwards in a search for her breasts as he began fucking her at a steady rhythm. He recalled the last time he had taken someone in this position, when Podrick from his numbers lessons had come to him on the riverbank a few years prior, emboldened by strongwine and a curiosity for what it would feel like to be taken from behind. It had only happened the once between them but was a pleasant enough experience to look back on. It was messy and awkward, but wasn’t so bad in the grand scheme of things.

Then again, it couldn’t compare to this, not with the way Sansa was mewling with each thrust he made into her cunt, a hand steadying her as she rocked against him.

The water was warm, ripples shooting through the tub as he tweaked at her nipples with his fingers, his mouth leaving wild kisses along her shoulders and neck, only partially obscured by her hair. The glass windows blockading the room from the rest of the palace fogged up he pounded into her, relishing in the way she clenched around him purposefully to torment him.

“Spill into me,” Sansa gasped as she pushed back against him, her breasts jiggling under his greedy hands as he sped his thrusting up somewhat, to heighten her pleasure as well as to achieve his own. He could envision it as if he could see it for true; himself pushing in and out of her like the madman he was reduced to whenever he had her. Her words struck something within him- the thought of a future with her. He could picture it all, even now; children, so many children of their own, and dogs to run around the estate, and domesticity he never thought he would have before. She wanted it too, he knew, as they had spoken about as much in the darkest hours of the night. Would he get a child on her now, he wondered, and would it be a mortal of a god? Could they even conceive children without a ritual of some sort? Would it be as mortal as him, destined to be outlived by its own mother? Even so, he couldn’t help the way his heart exalted at the thought that she wanted it; a life with _him_, of everyone in the world. “Spill into me, my love, please.”

She kept pleading as he fucked her deeper, his hands slipping back down to her hips as she braced herself on the edge of the tub. He couldn’t take much more of it before he was complying, a low keening sound escaping him as he came into her, his vision blurring as his peak hit him. She was his life, his heart, his future, no matter what was said or done.

The moments afterward were tender, and he had all but forgotten his earlier qualms as she whined against him, continuing to fuck herself on it as she brought her fingers to her pearl once more. If this was all he would do for the rest of his life, mayhaps he would die a happy man.

* * *

He was speaking to her animatedly about the springtime yet to come, as if he didn’t realize that her own Aunt Lyanna’s ascent from the Underworld marked the occasion every year. Even so, the oversight somehow endeared him more to her. His own account of the seasonal change included the stars that the ironborn had designed for themselves to utilize while navigating the seas, and she found herself enraptured with the stories he told. He had a slew of them at his disposal, none of which she had heard before in her lifetime—tales of merpeople and sirens alike claiming the seas for themselves and luring sailors to their deaths, legends of invaluable treasures stowed deep beneath the wreckage of ancient ships on cursed land, myths of the creatures and deities that dwelled underneath the waves searching for new victims to claim of his people…

Sansa tilted her head slightly as she watched him describe an uncle’s travels across the Narrow Sea, flailing his arms about animatedly, as she watched on, lovelorn. A part of her couldn’t help but _want_. That part craved the very thing she made him promise not to do; to see his eyes for all of the blues and greys and greens and specks of gold she found herself falling in love with. She longed to see the shift in his eyes as they made love, to watch him devour her with his gaze as he wanted to do the first night she came to him. She wanted him to _see_ her for her beauty and flaws and brokenness that she could never manage to shake. Would it be so bad if he did?

Desire warred with fear—what if his love morphed into something ugly, something unrecognizable and superficial? She adored him, she could not deny that. Perhaps she adored him subconsciously, even from the start, as she convinced her mother to allow her to determine his punishment. Perhaps it was as she watched him set tributes down to Robb’s altar, praying for his sister to find some happiness in the world even at his own expense, and for his mother to find peace wherever she may be. Perhaps she fell in love with him then, or when she first took him to bed. And perhaps she was falling for him still, on a never-ending descent into his heart.

A strange thought occurred to her then, as he was describing the vigor with which his uncle Rodrik had hurled a kraken back into the sea after fighting it bare-fisted, that she would adore him even when he was wrinkled and weathered. She could recall Robb’s grief as if it had occurred just moments prior, could still hear his pained sobs as his lover descended from her deathbed to the place all mortals went upon dying. Was that her fate? To adore him until she would be forced to let him go, only to carry that pain with her for centuries to come?

Yearning overcame her as she caught sight of the dimples on either side of his smile and the slight gap between his teeth, wondering if either would stand the test of time.

* * *

“So, you disappeared into the night to… marry a stranger. Who crept into our home in the middle of the night, whose face you still haven’t seen.” Yara repeated dubiously as she leaned back against the divan in the sitting room, seemingly suspicious of such finery. They hadn’t even had anything to rival this when they were princes and princesses, he recalled. Even Theon hadn’t truly realized the extent to which he lived in luxury until he had removed his blindfold that morning, long after Sansa had left the premises to ensure Theon his privacy. The word was brighter than he remembered, and the colors were vivid, so much that he didn’t realize how he longed for it until he saw it for himself again. “And this palace was…”

“A gift from Catelyn,” he mumbled, recognizing just how bizarre his story sounded.

“Right,” Yara’s eyes sparkled with something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. “Do you even know that this wife of yours is a woman and not a donkey the trickster cursed to seduce you?”

The thought might have had doubt creeping into his mind if not for the knowledge that the trickster god was Sansa’s own brother, the wild wolf Rickon, who often just roamed the mortal planes for someone to dupe into doing his bidding. He loved chaos by the way she had described him, but was not so cruel that he would inflict such a thing on either of them unprompted.

Not that he could say such a thing to Yara without drawing an eye-roll from her.

“She’s a woman,” Theon clarified, exasperated that this was even a question. “Trust me.”

“That good a fuck, then?” Yara’s brows shot upwards as one of the castle’s servants brought roasted chestnuts to her on a silver platter. Theon had never put a face to the name until now, figuring that Wolkan would have had a sterner demeanor than the kindly one he was met with as he refused his own treat as politely as he could muster while his sister was berating him for his choices. “Enough to get you out here in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do _but_ fuck her?”

“I love her,” Theon defended himself, feeling more than a bit affronted when his sister laughed aloud at the proclamation. Who was she to tell him what he felt or who he was? Sansa had been nothing but honest with him, and he knew that for a fact. Even if she somehow was the most hideous creature to grace Westeros, he would still follow her to the ends of the earth.

She cared for him as no one had done before.

“You love her?” Yara exclaimed, shaking her head as if the truth (or her misguided perception of it) was obvious to everyone but him, opening up a plethora of issues that he would rather have kept shut and far away from him. “You don’t know who she is, baby brother, or _what_ she is.”

Clenching his jaw, Theon looked away, briefly captivated by the way the sea sparkled behind the sheer orange curtains framing the terrace window. There were mountains spanning a thousand leagues behind the body of water, mountains Theon hadn’t even known had existed prior to seeing them for himself. “Aren’t you just glad I’m not dead in a river somewhere?”

She took a moment to think it over. “I suppose so.”

* * *

It was beginning to drive him mad.

Yara was long gone and so Theon was left alone with his thoughts, waiting impatiently for his lover to return home. He had scoured the house for some clue of who she might be, ashamed as he was for having done it at all. There was nothing to indicate her identity—no portraits or letters or missives addressed to her. She wasn’t a beast, he knew that much. What kind of monster would have a warm, very human cunt as well as soft breasts, and hair that hung down to her back? He knew her body well enough to know what she was and was not. Unless… it hadn’t occurred to him that she might have altered his perception of her appearance for his benefit.

It took his greatest willpower to shake his treacherous thoughts from his mind, attempting to distract himself with a game of cyvasse to get some peace of mind. It was unsuccessful, of course, so he moved onto another board game. When that failed to keep his thoughts from straying to the possibilities of what he had been willfully ignorant to this entire time, he had all but given up on enjoying a peaceful evening alone. The notion that he had been deceived plagued him, the one detail that distorted each memory for him being her promise not to look upon her visage. He had initially presumed it to be a game to her, or an expression of insecurity, but now his mind was taking twisting paths to more sinister alternatives.

Could he even claim to know her at all if he couldn’t even envision her face for true?

He was heading back towards the bed when he saw it. It was a minute detail, one that he had missed a thousand times while pacing back and forth in this very room earlier in the day.

Her hairbrush.

Each step he took towards her mirrored dresser marked another step, harder to trudge through as if he was wading through dirt and mud to get there, and another mistake. His curiosity could not be sated, however, as he took the wooden brush into his hands and inspected it for himself. He had brushed her hair with this very instrument nearly every night, offering to do it in her stead because of how he loved the feeling of her hair between his fingers, but he had always assumed the brush was a sleek creamy color. Instead, it was a dull plain brown.

His eyes darted to the strands of hair caught in the brush, long and red, and it was like a blow to his stomach. Her hair was a copper red, a shining red, the color of the sunrise itself over the sea. He had never made a guess as to what color it was nor had he ever asked yet now, it seemed to reshape his entire perception of her appearance. She had _red_ hair, not brown or blonde or black.

Dropping the brush as if it was a hot coal in his hand, Theon attempted to take back what he had just learned. Ignorance was bliss, it seemed, and now there was no taking back what he had discovered. His heart hammered in his chest as he retreated from the dresser, knees hitting the back of the bed just as they had the first night they shared a bed together. Gods, what had he done? Could she see him now, betraying her in word and deed, or did she trust him enough that she didn’t bother keeping a watchful eye on him? He wasn’t sure which was worse.

Theon slept restlessly that night, his heart dropping to his stomach when he felt the bed dip beside him and lithe arms encircle his waist as if he was deserving to feel them on him at all.

* * *

Sansa could tell he was agonizing, though over what, she could not be sure.

She watched day after day as his smiles became more forced, as he took longer to formulate his questions and responses, and tried to quell the feeling of her heart breaking within her chest. She had given him her love and taken every precaution to ensure that it wouldn’t dissipate as it had done before, yet she still seemed to come up short. It was as if he was teetering on a line that might snap at any moment, that he was holding back from sharing his true feelings with her.

If he had fallen out of love with her, she would leave him be to pursue the life he wanted.

She had resigned herself to that from the start, when she had first tied her favor over his eyes and pressed her lips to his ear, and she would keep to her word now if he decided to cast her aside no matter how the decision would hurt her. Love meant sacrifice, and she would give anything to him if he asked it of her, whether it be riches or children or a kingdom of his own to rule over.

Warm fingers slid over her own as she lost herself in thought, and her snap back to reality was startling. Theon squeezed her fingers with his own, just as he had done when they first began sharing a bed, and when he smiled it was with unadulterated adoration. As if nothing had changed when she felt in her gut that _everything_ had shifted. She longed to shake him, to plead with him and ask where she had erred so that things could return to how they had been days ago.

“Come here,” he pled with her, his blindfold obscuring the eyes that could tell her a thousand words if she had the courage to look into them without fear of the repercussions of doing so. She inched closer to him from where she had been lounging on one of the daybeds of their terrace, accepting the kiss he placed upon her lips with as much love as she could pour into it.

“Sansa…” Theon started, and she could already feel an avalanche of emotions bubble up within her. She watched him expectantly, her eyes poring over his face to analyze every twitch in his lips, every inhale and exhale, every- “I want to see you.”

A chill seemed to pass through the air as his words sunk in.

_Why?_ She wanted to demand, confused as to why it would matter now when it hadn’t for weeks earlier. Had he convinced himself of her beauty while they made love time and time again but was just now beginning to question the validity of his assumption? He would want her if he saw her, she knew, but she wouldn’t be able to bear it if it was the only reason he wanted her.

If it was, he would reveal himself to be just as superficial of the men of her past, stringing her along for the physical pleasures she could bring him before he would eventually tire of her as he had done with the lovers he had enjoyed before her; the ones so devout to her mother that she had considered killing him when he scorned them. Was his love for her contingent on her beauty? If she wore an ugly face for him to look upon, would he cast her aside for one of his former bedmates? Would he feign attraction to her until he wouldn’t be able to any longer?

The thought caused a shudder to ripple through her.

“It was the only thing I asked of you,” Sansa proclaimed instead, her voice laced with betrayal and steeled over, her fingers completely still beneath his own. Her heart felt frosted over, as if braced for the worst in her denial. “You promised me that you wouldn’t. You swore it.”

“I know,” he murmured, so quiet that she had almost missed it. “I’m sorry.”

* * *

The moonlight was likely trickling into the room, catching on every surface in its path, and illuminating the very bed he slept in. Theon twisted and turned in his place as he resisted the itching directly underneath his eyes. He wanted to rip the blindfold off and toss it into a fire, to see as he had done for the first twenty-five years of his life. He wanted to look at the sea, and the sky, and the mountains, and at _her_, no matter the cost of freeing himself from his constraints.

Even if she was a hideous beast come to terrorize him, he would fashion his heart to love her anyways. It did not matter to him what she looked like and yet, it was _all_ that mattered.

He would not care if she was an ogre or cyclops so long as he could look into her eyes at least once in his lifetime. It did not matter what form she took so long as he could see it. His own ignorance was torturing him with each passing second that he slept beside her with the ability to see her if he wished to—to catch just a fleeting glimpse of her to stow away in his memory. How could he love her fully if he could not even describe the color of her eyes with certainty?

It would be so easy, he thought as he turned to face away from her, to simply light one of the matches he had impulsively stowed underneath his feathered pillow. It would only take a moment for his curiosity to be sated, for him to confirm what he had known all along.

The seeds of doubt sewn in his mind began to grow rapidly as he listened to the sound of her breathing beside him. If she was still sleeping when he lit the match, just so that it was put out within a second of lighting it, it might not be so bad. How would she even know that he had done it in the first place? He wrestled with the choice for what felt like hours, tearing him up inside as he contemplated the consequences of betraying her. Would he be able to live with the compulsion of not knowing the truth for every day that he spent with her? If not today, he would surely be tempted tomorrow or the day after until he gave into the urge to _see_ her.

It only took a moment to carefully remove the blindfold and place it on the other side of his pillow. He tried not to feel like the treachery had already festered deep into his heart as his eyes adjusted to the sudden burst of colors before him. The window was in the opposite direction—the one where Sansa was asleep, curled against his back in her slumber—but what he could see assailed his senses as exhilaration raced within him at the prospect of seeing her. He could see the patterns of the walls, the cream of the rug on the floor, the chestnut hue to his bedside table, the smallest crack in the doorframe above him… and before he could second-guess himself, he was slowly reaching beneath his pillow to retrieve the key to his serenity and turning on his side.

With a strangled breath, he lit the match he was pinching between his fingers.

Before he could stop himself, to yell at himself for doing the one thing that he should have known better than to do, his breath caught in his throat. She was divinity made into flesh. Her hair was long and red, flowing in waves around her bare shoulders like an angry current come to claim him for herself. Her lips arched upwards, her upper lip forming the very same cupid’s bow he had once identified by touch. They were upturned as if she had been smiling in her sleep. Her cheekbones were sharp, and her jaw angular, and her nose sculpted as if from a marble statue.

He was dumbstruck for a moment, only one moment, when her eyes snapped open. They were a blue like he had never seen before, filled with fury and heartbreak and grief and disappointment, and immediately he regretted his decision to look. She pulled away from him, raising the coverlets up to protect her modesty despite having had him inside her dozens of times before.

“You promised,” she whispered brokenly.

He clambered towards her, calling out her name as she backed away from him, desperate to take back his latest act of stupidity as her lower lip trembled at the betrayal. He _had_ promised and broken it, just as he assured her he would not do. Theon felt regret like an ache in his soul, like the loss of a lifeline, as she backed away from the bed, no longer standing anywhere near him.

The way she looked at him was as if he had broken her heart ten times over.

She was already gone by the time he reached for her.

* * *

He searched for her for days.

The palace did not disappear like she had done, even when he spent an entire day scouring the seaside for some sign of her. The servants were gone, though, as were all her possessions. All that remained of her was the blindfold- the one he had removed in an act of stupidity that fateful night. He kept it tucked away against his breast, forever against his heart, as he spent day after day yearning for her to return to him just one more time. He would give anything to have her back, though he feared the damage had been done the moment he lit the damned match.

Nothing seemed to compare to the tea she would make him in the morning, grinning into his kiss like a fool in love. He recalled the way she would pop grapes into his mouth amidst laughter, seeming to want for nothing but to be in his company. Now, all he had left of her was an empty home.

He prayed at her mother’s altar for forgiveness, though nothing ever came of it. All that his prayers received was judgmental silence, as resounding and finite as he dreaded it would be. He knelt before her brother’s shrine afterward, and then her sister’s, and eventually her own.

All he had to present to her was given forth in the form of an offering.

Soon, he began to visit her temple every afternoon, bearing whatever gifts he could pour his heart into. He brought lemon tarts to her on the first day, setting her favorite treat upon the altar as if expecting her to descend from the heavens to munch on them. He had berated her more than once about how loudly she chewed and so, the sound of smacking accompanied his fantasies.

She never answered his prayers.

He read her poetry the next day, from the book of sonnets she had raved about finding in their personal library. Some days, he would simply light a candle and recount the events of his day for her, praying that there was still a part of her that cared about what was to become of him. Any of the ironborn who witnessed his private conversations with her statue likely thought him to be mad, but he couldn’t find it in himself to give a damn about what anyone thought of him anymore. Balon’s legacy could not hurt him, nor could anything else. He would let them talk if that was the entertainment they took to seeking out when they eyed him mid-prayer.

It continued for a moon’s turn; nearly as long as his relationship with her had lasted, though it felt like longer- far longer. He would bring presents to her shrine and set them down, often speaking to the stone statue of a generic maiden as if it was Sansa herself in hopes that she was listening to him. From the eve of Sansa’s disappearance onward, it hadn’t felt right to continue residing in her estate, and so he returned to the villa left to him and Yara. It was becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate living from surviving, and life from existence.

* * *

It was a miserable affair, to watch the one she loved begin learning how to live without her.

Sansa found herself in the position that Catelyn had been in the day she first caught a glimpse of Theon in her visions, watching intently as he went about his daily routine. It was agonizing to see him suffer without her, but she couldn’t stop. He was a part of her, written into her soul as if she had been fashioned just to love him. He was at her temple again, saying nothing and yet he said everything with a simple flash of his eyes, so much sadder than she remembered them.

She had stormed up to the heavens in the wake of his betrayal with tears stinging at her eyes and wondered why she had ever gone searching for love in the first place. Her heart felt hollow without him, like an empty shell that could cave in at any moment. Jeyne had urged her to forget about him and find another mortal to bide her time with, but she couldn’t find it in herself to allow her heart to wander in any direction but to Pyke. She longed to answer his prayers and return to him at her temple, kissing every inch of his face as he spun her in his arms.

But he had betrayed her.

The moment he lit a match to look upon her face, he had broken the one promise she asked him to make in exchange for her love. Unfortunately, it seemed that she could not manage to rescind what she had given him no matter how hard she tried. Mayhaps she would always love him from afar, and that was the great tragedy meant to befall her. Always to see and never to touch.

She had largely been left alone since her return to the heavens, her siblings and parents all seeming to know better than to disturb her in her anguish. Daenerys had joined her one day in her misery, accompanying her to watch Theon from afar only to unhelpfully lust after his sister and offer her a piece of unsolicited advice that she would likely never take. Though she attempted to protect her heart from the aftereffects of Theon’s absence in her life, it was all but shattered as she observed him suffering the same consequences of their parting that she did.

_Fool_, she thought despondently as he placed gifts at her altar every day of her absence, though she could never find it in herself to look away until he was long gone. If only he hadn’t broken his promise to her, they might have had happiness together, had children together, had a lifetime together. Instead, she was left mourning a future she would never have from a different plane of existence, watching the man she loved with watery eyes and a hardened heart. His life would carry on eventually without her, as mortals did when they grew tired of wallowing in their own misery, while hers would wither and wilt as the flowers would during the unforgiving winter.

* * *

If looks could kill, Yara would have been dead thrice over.

Bessa had approached him while he was inspecting the vegetables in the marketplace, casually remarking on how long it had been since she had last seen him with a bounce to her step and a sparkle in her eye. He halfheartedly humored the conversation, noting that she seemed none too surprised when Yara asserted that he had recently become unattached from the companionship everyone in Pyke had been gossiping about when he disappeared from the public eye to be with _her_. No matter their estrangement, no woman could compare to his lover, his wife, his very _soul_.

How could anyone compare to eros herself?

Their marriage might not have been solidified in a mortal ceremony, but he knew that it was true in the eyes of the gods, at least. That sort of bond had never been in the cards for him before her, not after discovering the truth about his mother’s confinement in a castle he and his sister had long abandoned. It was practically rubble now, reduced to an even worse state than his own villa. Seeking the company of another woman seemed wholly unappealing so soon after losing Sansa. Perhaps it would be easier to stomach her advances once he properly grieved the loss of his love.

Even now, he found himself hoping against all sense that she would return to him someday, as if the finality of her terms had not decreed that such a turn of events would never come to pass. She would never return to him, he knew, but he couldn’t help but hold a candle for her. It burned and burned away at him, though it never seemed to dwindle or extinguish. It merely… existed, as he did without her. He knew that Yara was concerned for his wellbeing, but nothing he could say or do convinced her of his feigned happiness. What use was it to pretend anymore, as it was?

He missed her, and the whispers that seemed to follow him through the kingdom did nothing to quell his racing thoughts. He heard some of them for himself during an evening with his sister at the tavern; that he had fallen in love with a mermaid, shot down and killed by one of his murderous uncles on his father’s side; that he had been claimed by the goddess Cersei and discarded like a used toy when she was done with him; that a foreign queen had seduced him to steal his fortune (one that didn’t exist, but it seemed the smallfolk believed their own tales). Each story was more outlandish than the last, though none seemed to get the sequence of events right.

Theon didn’t bother correcting them, not when he could instead drown his sorrows until he had almost forgotten the striking blues of her eyes against the red that cascaded down either side of her face as she realized what he had done, her unmistakable heartbreak mirrored in his eyes.

His sister’s attempt at matchmaking did little use in pulling Theon from his stupor, especially when all he could think about was the sound of her singing— sweet like birdsong, and warm lavender-scented baths, and lemon thyme in his tea. His heart felt empty without her, hollow as if it had never existed at all. Some days, he rationalized to himself that his desire to know the complete truth would have overcome him eventually if not on the night it did. He surely could not have lived the rest of his days blindfolded, nor could they truly trust each other with that gap separating them; the one of his curiosity with her secrecy, a combination that would have imploded with time if they had let it be for any longer than they already had. Even so, he wished more than anything that he could take it back if only to feel her kiss on his lips once more.

How could he think of anyone else when her memory lingered so closely to him? When she was more real than any woman standing before him? Mortals were not fashioned to be loved by the gods and Sansa had loved him regardless. He would do anything to undo what had been done, to grovel at her feet for her forgiveness, and draw her into his arms as he had done a thousand times before. If blinding himself was what it would take for her to return to him, he would gladly give up the gift of sight permanently, though he knew he could never deserve her love, if he had ever earned it at all. He had been given a chance and squandered it. He was given love and spoiled it.

* * *

“I worry about you.” The words cut through her racing thoughts like a knife as Lady charged through the pantheon with Grey Wind at her heels, tongue wagging as she weaved through the columns without a care in the world. Comparatively, Sansa was uncharacteristically melancholic. She turned her attention to her companion, watching on as her brother discarded his weaponry onto the floor beside them. Jon had engaged her in a similar conversation just days prior, expressing concern for her increasing sullenness upon Jeyne’s urging to help her snap out of it. She humored the conversation for the sake of her cousin’s blossoming relationship with her closest friend, if nothing else, but she couldn’t find it in herself to pretend with Robb. “You haven’t smiled since you returned home, Sansa. It’s unlike you to be so… distant.”

She drew in a deep breath as her brother frowned at her, as if trying to gauge the extent of her unhappiness for himself. They all likely knew what had happened, considering the distances they went to pry into one another’s eyes, but she had made an effort not to speak at length about it. It still hurt to even speak his name aloud, her heart crying out to her with every step she took that was not towards him. He had crept into her heart and burrowed there. It was impossible to shake.

Whenever she hid away in the wolfswood to weep to her heart’s content away from curious eyes, she recalled the way he would smile, so different from any she had ever seen before. He had many smiles reserved only for her, be they secretive smirks or contagious grins that would send her head spinning. He would smile into their kisses without even realizing it, always leaning in for more, as if he couldn’t get enough of a girl whose face he had never even seen. His curls hung low on his forehead onto the blindfold he had always worn with them, and gods, did she miss running her fingers through them as they laid together in bed. She yearned for him still.”

“You miss him,” Robb filled in the blanks once the silence between them stretched out, his eyes glossing over with a sadness that she could see reflected in her own. They mirrored each other in their heartbreak, it seemed. His own son had grown into adulthood centuries earlier, flitting between the heavens and earth as his heart desired, never staying in one place for long enough to pin him down. She recalled the desperation with which Robb pleaded his case to Rhaegar, begging him to bring his first love back at any cost. He had delved into the Underworld with the promise of saving her so long as he refrained from turning to look at her. When he failed at the very last leg of his journey, it was as if a part of him had died with Jeyne Westerling. She had felt his pain as if it were her own, unable to assist him no matter how she tried. “Go to him.”

“I cannot,” she protested tersely. Her stubbornness could rival even that of her father’s in this regard; a promise was a promise and Theon had broken it in lighting that match. The bridges he had burned in doing so seemed to char with time, so close to crumbling away with grief that Sansa struggled to keep it afloat. Her brother was looking at her as if she had gone mad, an exasperated glint in his eyes as their wolves tussled over the marble. “You know I cannot.”

“If you say so,” Robb conceded, seeming very much like he was biting his tongue from saying what he actually felt. Perhaps it was because Theon had always favored him over all of the gods growing up, often going to his temple in secret as a child whenever he prayed to have strength to ward off his older brothers. “I truly hope you don’t come to regret that decision someday.”

* * *

He returned to her palace once enough time had passed for him to feel capable enough on his own to collect the remainder of his belongings. Dust had collected along the wooden panels of the fireplace, he noticed, and the liveliness the palace had previously possessed was all but dulled now. He was on his way to fetching the clothes from their old bedroom with a heavy heart when a discrepancy in the house caught his eye. It pained him to recognize that he was so familiar with her home that he still noticed even the slightest of disturbances on the estate.

A note was pinned to the foyer’s entryway.

He nearly stumbled over himself in his rush to retrieve the letter, his clammy hands struggling to straighten it out enough that the writing was legible. It wasn’t a personalized note, nor did it have anything beyond a few words scribbled onto it. For a passing moment, he wondered if he had written it himself before he had lit the match and merely forgotten about it shortly afterwards. It wasn’t much but it was a line of communication, enough to spark a hope in him that should have long dissipated by now, though the hammering of his heart indicated that he had not been ready to collect his belongings after all. He suspected he would never be willing to let her go.

_Clearing. The Iron Grove. Take the spring trail. Look for the lilac bush. Call out to the sweet blue and she will come to you. It is the least I could do for you after all you have given me._

As he read the letter over repeatedly, his eyes stopping over each rounded vowel and display of elegant penmanship that he somehow instantly recognized as hers, tears pricked at his eyes. The note could have meant nothing and everything, so vaguely written that he found it difficult not to trip over every single word as he read it again and again, clutching his line of communication to Sansa, however one-sided it was, to his chest. Theon exhaled deeply, steadying himself with the thought that she had given him a task to complete; if she was watching, if she even cared, he swore to himself that he would avoid disappointing her a second time.

* * *

There seemed to be nothing in the Iron Grove for miles but trees, all fashioned out of the ironwood they used to build the sturdiest of ships whenever wartime was near. It was a gloomy day, a clear indication that springtime was almost at its end. The clouds in the sky seemed to warn him of a pending rainfall, though he hadn’t had the forethought to bring anything to protect himself with from the rain save for a cloak. Perhaps he could find some shelter in a nearby cave if it started storming anytime soon. Silly as it was, he wasted not a single breath in following her directions, refusing to even make a detour to the villa. If there was a chance—even the slightest chance—that Sansa was waiting for him to prove his loyalty to her, he had to take it.

It was when he came across a diverging trail that he stopped to pause. One was covered in an array of flowers, purple and yellow tulips seeming to weave along the grassy road, while the other was plain. The adorned one had to be the springtime trail she had written to him about, and so he followed it with no consideration as to what could have been waiting for him. Whether he had to fight a beast off to earn her trust back or fulfil some impossible task, he would do it. If it meant that he could see her again, even for a moment, he would do anything without hesitation.

Hours had passed before he reached a patchy field of lilac bushes with any luck, noting with excitement that there was a body of water right beside the shrubbery. It was sparkling and light blue, so different from the deep greys and murky greens of the sea he had grown accustomed to seeing on Pyke and Harlaw whenever he returned to his former home. For a moment, he was entranced. This wasn’t a normal body of water, no, there was something mythical about it. It was a lagoon, vast and wondrous, as if pulled directly from the storybooks in his personal library.

He wasn’t sure what to do or say and so he settled on silence, wandering about the field as if the array of colorful flowers planted into the ground would answer his questions for him. It reminded him of when he was a young boy, frolicking along ponds and lakes alike in hopes that his mother would come to him with words of comfort and assurances that she hadn’t forgotten about him.

Theon wondered if Sansa still remembered him, still kept him close to her heart even after all this time. The notion of being at the receiving end of her indifference hurt him more than the thought of her scorn ever could; he wasn’t worthy of her, it was true, but he couldn’t help but hope that he could be someday if given the chance. What reason would she have to believe him though, after all he had done in deceiving her? Any chance she gave him would be one too many and yet, he craved it. Her forgiveness was priceless, not to be taken for granted ever again.

An idea occurred to him.

“Sansa?” He called out to the water by chance that she would hear him, feeling spectacularly foolish for it at his age. What could shouting out to the ‘sweet blue’ even entail if it was to be taken as literally as the other directions in the note? They were all relatively simple, if not a little confusing in nature. It was an ordeal to attempt to make sense of it, frustrating in that he felt that he was missing something that should have been obvious to him. What could she have _meant_ when she scribbled the instructions down onto the paper, in the first place?

The path he had taken was oddly-placed enough that he knew he had gone in the right direction, so he could only assume that the ‘sweet blue’ she spoke of had to be the lagoon. There was nothing blue around him, save for the sky which was greyer in color now anyhow. He longed for answers more than ever before, praying that if she was watching, she didn’t misconstrue his folly for a lack of trying, because he was racking his brain for answers that were not coming to him.

He pondered the various ways that he could have interpreted the words, beginning to think of the shanties he had learned as a young boy when- “Baby?”

Theon’s heart would have stopped if not for how desperately he needed to see her.

He turned on his feet, slowly enough that his eyes wouldn’t trick him once he had the chance to look upon the sudden intruder. She was a woman, standing tall and beautiful behind him, with hair as white as snow drawn up into a hairstyle far more elaborate than any he had seen in his time on earth. There were crow’s feet around her eyes as she smiled at him without a trace of hesitance to her demeanor. Her hands were outstretched and suddenly, Theon felt like he was ten years old all over again. Had his mind devolved into playing cruel tricks on him now that he had been alone in the wilderness for so long?

He had never seen this woman before and yet, it was like he had known her for his entire life. There was no mistaking who she was, with her kind eyes (_my eyes, _he told himself wondrously as he watched her step towards him as graceful as a dancer) and so many of the features he and Yara shared with one another but not with their late father; her chin, her cheekbones, her eyes, her smile, her nose… it was uncanny, how similar she looked to them and how different she was now that he could see her with his own eyes and not in a shoddily-drawn mural of pale chalk.

“Theon,” she called out and it was like the breath had been knocked out of him.

His feet moved of their own accord as he rushed to the woman, elderly and yet as young as he had ever seen an adult woman, drawn into a deep embrace as soon as he had somehow come to a stop. All of his movements felt sluggish as the white-haired stranger smoothed a hand over his forehead and pulled him closer to her, as if she had been waiting her entire life to hold him.

“I-” Theon’s eyed pored over the woman, his _mother_, with barely concealed shock. “How?”

“Eros whispered to me,” she raved as if she was an oracle retelling a story that had been told a thousand times to children and grown-ups alike. “In my dreams, Theon, she told me. She whispered that you would come to me, but I didn’t know when. I didn’t know if you ever would. I beg you to forgive me, sweetling, for all I have left you to in this cruel world.” Her face crumpled, a heartbreaking sight from someone so expressive as her. “My boy, you’ve come back to me, haven’t you? I have missed you so, Theon. Your brothers… I know what befell them.”

Once he thought his mother might have yanked Rodrik and Maron into the storm to their deaths. Now, it seemed that she was as lost as he was in that regard, nowhere near the seductress the stories played her out to be nor the alternative telling of her as the doting mythical wife of Balon whose circumstances tore her from her home rather than her choice to flee him and his cruelty.

She was _relieved_ to see him, not aggrieved. A pang made itself known within Theon’s chest at the realization that Sansa had been the one to find his mother and thus, had been the one to write him the instructions to find her after all. The thought drove him half to lunacy himself, that she would do something so thoughtful as this for him no matter their severed bond with one another.

“My heart broke when I heard about them,” Alannys wept as she clutched onto Theon’s sleeves, the very picture of sorrow and beauty. Her eyes were wild, rounded, and frantic, as if she was frightened that her son would disappear at any given moment from her sight. “Elia told me they were lost at sea and I feared the worst. You… you and Yara are all that remains to me, my _boy_.”

“Mother,” Theon interrupted her gently, nearly bursting at getting to call her by the name as he dreamed he would for his entire childhood before giving up on the notion of ever finding her. “Have you been here this entire time? Can you leave?” She opened and closed her mouth as if she did not know how to answer his questions, and so more came spilling out. “Is it a spell? What can I do to get you to Pyke, Mother? Yara would want to see you, I know she would.”

“I cannot join your world, my sweet Theon,” Alannys murmured to him as if she had anticipated his line of questioning after all. His shoulders sagged the slightest bit at the realization that he would not be able to bring his mother back home with him, and would probably have to leave her behind after years of searching for her. Who was to say that she would still be here when he returned to show her to his sister? “You can join mine, my sweet. Mine and Elia’s, and- you could bring your sister and live with me, Theon. If you wanted it, you could be with us all.”

Theon blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of anything she was saying as she ranted her suggestions to him, wondering just how he would pose such a question to Yara.

Elia? It took simple deduction to recognize the name as the woman, overlooked far too often in the narrative told about her rescue, who freed his mother from Balon’s clutches. The princess who gave her crown and life to save a woman in an act of love that many had assumed to have been sisterly. The way his mother’s voice clung to the name _Elia_ made him rethink that assumption; it was sweet and adoring, much like how Sansa used to sound whenever she spoke his name into the open air, as if all she wanted to do was say his name again and again until it hardly sounded like a name anymore, let alone a word at all. The comparison brought his mind to a standstill, made without considering what it meant that Alannys had someone so dear to her.

He was still wrapping his head around the implications of what she had said when a woman was slinking out from behind her, clad in the same hunting gear that his mother wore, eyeing him with hesitance—as if she wasn’t sure whether he favored his mother or his father in nature. Her skin shone like bronze and her hair was the deepest black he had ever seen, drawn into a layered style at the top as she inspected him for herself. She slunk forward, ever cautious in the company of a stranger. It wasn’t simple for him to wrap his head around, nor could he simply leave.

“Bring Yara, my boy,” Alannys pled with him, her hands closing around his fist. “Please.”

* * *

It had only taken a short explanation of the evening’s occurrences to convince Yara to follow the trail with him, if only to mock him for dreaming up an interaction with their estranged naiad mother than anything else. It was just like they were children again with Yara following after him exhaustedly as he attempted to convince her that they could find their mother if they tried hard enough. There was one time he had swum out all the way to Banefort with delusions in his mind that if he went hard enough and proved his strength to her, his mother would reveal herself to him and allow him to leave his horrid family behind to embrace a life of running through the wilderness and hunting deer, away from society and all of its horrors. She had humored him for years, accompanying him on every trial despite her hardened façade of indifference.

Now he thought Yara might have been hoping just the slightest bit that he would find her.

Once they had arrived at the clearing however, her eyes widened to the size of saucers and her lower lip trembled feverishly as if every single one of her dreams and fears had come to fruition simultaneously, troubling and blessing her in one fatal swing. He had never seen his sister’s emotions play so freely across her face before, as if she could not believe her eyes.

Theon looked on as his mother clutched at Yara’s cheeks with both hands, weeping tears of joy while her daughter stood stiff in her embrace, shocked that she was alive at all. It took a beat for Yara to wrap her arms around their mother roughly, shaking as she was afforded a motherly embrace for the first time in her life—at least that she could remember. She had only been four years old when Alannys had left, old enough to remember her presence but too young to remember anything of substance about her. He allowed them to have their moment, averting his eyes towards the body of water beside them as they reconnected, but they caught on his mother’s partner instead. Elia was smiling at them from where she was perched atop a rock on the lagoon, as if this was as important to her as it was to Alannys, as if she had been waiting for it for years.

Later on, Alannys described her life story to the pair of them in great detail, all while twirling a lilac flower between her index finger and thumb. It was true that she had been born a naiad, raised in these very marshes until her eventual capture by Balon as a young woman. She had been dubbed his ‘queen’ but was treated scarcely better than a prisoner, according to her memory of their sham of a marriage, and she had never returned after her escape in fear that Balon would lock her in his dungeon for the remainder of her days for even attempting to leave him. So, she mistakenly trusted that he wouldn’t harm any of the children who shared his own blood.

Her home was where other nymphs resided, not among soldiers and pirates who would abuse her just as their father had done. And so she extended her invitation again, to which Yara assured her that they would come to an accord about how to ensure that they would see her regularly. She promised her that even if they didn’t relocate into a foreign forest in hopes of seeing their pseudo-mythological mother, they would see her as often as they could manage to do.

Her stories had been long and arduous—of finding Elia in similar circumstances, of inspiring her to flee as a pair, of holding hands as they made the final leap into the ocean… she spoke even more vaguely about the nature of their relationship, though the careful way her presumed partner was observing them from behind a slab of tree bark was telling on its own. Even Yara scoffed once at the description of their ‘friendship’ before Alannys shot her a wry smile, telling her to mind her manners as if they were a regular family chatting at the dinner table rather than who they were; a technical prince and princess finally reuniting with their nymph-mother.

* * *

They left the clearing with caring kisses pressed to their foreheads and a slew of promises that they would hold onto for as long as it took them to get home and settle in their own beds.

Theon had been attempting to sleep for mere minutes when he startled at a thump coming from the room adjacent to his own, sitting up at the notion that there might be an intruder in the house. It was Yara’s room, but she was often so light on her feet that the sound of _anything_ coming from her direction was suspicious in itself. He rose from his bed steadily, reaching instantly for the knife he had stowed away underneath his pillow in the event that this could happen.

They had no shortage of enemies considering how many people Balon had wronged, ironborn and foreigners alike. It would have been just another home invasion in a string of them over the years, though this was the first that originated from his sister’s chambers.

Another sound followed and he was alert within moments, tiptoeing out of his bed with his weapon held close to his chest in preparation for the worst. He would not let her be harmed in this ordeal, so he took care in dashing to his door, pushing it open gently enough not to make any noise in the process. It took him mere seconds to get to Yara’s room, finding that her door was already cracked open the slightest bit. The knife shook in his hands as he peeked through the narrow opening in the door, wholly unprepared for the sight that burned holes into his eyes.

Yara was laying on her back, hair splayed out around her pillows as her face contorted with delight. Theon flinched away at the sight of a nude woman bent between his sister’s thighs, the stranger’s long silver-gold hair tumbling down her back as she pleasured his sister in a way he never needed to see with his own eyes. The sound of slurping shocked his ears as unpleasantly as they possibly could. The girl had an ethereal quality to her, much like Sansa had, though she possessed a different energy to her altogether; he did not take the time to ponder over their differences before he was dropping his knife to the ground and stumbling backwards.

It wasn’t long before he was sprinting to his room and shoving clothes on as hastily as he could manage, not wanting to spend any more time in the same house as his sister while she allowed some goddess or another to bed her. It was her prerogative to do whatever she wanted, but he would not be around for it if he could help it.

Before he could register where he was going, he found himself heading outside and towards the one place he went when he could not find solace elsewhere.

* * *

“Are you going to wallow over him forever, then?” Arya’s mocking voice cut through the silence as she sidled up to her sister, her bow slung over her shoulder while she went about gulping down a chalice of apricot juice, ever the chaotic entity Sansa had come to accept her as being. Their early years together had been marred by bickering over one thing or another until they had finally set their enmity aside to banish Joffrey from the heavens together, forging a tentative friendship over their mutual hatred of the fiend. She swallowed a mouthful of juice as she gestured to the vision that Sansa was watching as intently as she could, of Theon sleeping beneath her altar, his head lying on the cold stone as if he thought he did not deserve the luxury of a bed. It broke her heart in two. “It’s getting a big pathetic now, don’t you think?”

“Shut up, Arya,” Sansa chided her sister, albeit halfheartedly, as she watched that familiar crease between his brows return as he dreamed. What was he dreaming about? She liked to think that it was one of those stories he had so enthusiastically told her while they were wrapped up in each other, with her chin pressed against his chest as she peered up at him adoringly.

Their short-lived domesticity was perhaps the happiest she had been in years, if not ever, and reminiscing on it while her once-lover slept inside her temple brought tears to her eyes once more. Why did he put himself in such pain for her still? She had written him a final note upon finding his mother for him, a parting gift, so that she could give him something to fill his heart with joy before disappearing from his life entirely. Instead, she found herself watching his day-to-day life as longingly as she always did, her heart never seeming to let up in its devotion to him.

She could hardly find comfort in her friends anymore, considering she had caught Margaery and Robb (_her_ closest friend, Margaery and _her_ brother Robb) making love against a tree during one of the many ‘hunts’ they attended together, their affair a recent development according to the shoddy excuses they had to offer her upon being found in an incredibly precarious position with one another. Sansa knew enough from the heated glances they sent each other when they thought she wasn’t looking that there was something there, something building between them, and couldn’t find it in herself to tear them away from one another to listen to her sob story.

“I don’t understand why you won’t just forgive him,” her sister mused, her fingers instinctively going up to toy with the pendant Gendry had acquired for her when they had first begun dancing around each other, too caught up in their frustrating obstinance to admit their feelings aloud. It had lasted years, she recalled with fondness, remembering the flush to Arya’s cheeks when she first confided in her about their first kiss, not knowing who else to go to for advice when it came to romance. She had been so touched at the time, squealing with excitement about the prospect of her sister finally finding someone to share her life with. “He’s obviously gone for you.”

Sansa attempted not to eye her sister with annoyance, just barely biting back the ‘_you’re one to talk’_ as she watched Theon burrow closer into the makeshift pillow he had created for himself with his cloak. Her breathing hitched slightly as she contrasted the image with the one of him laughing at one of her japes in her bed while they lived together, his lips curled into a satisfied smile as she fed him her favorite pastries in an attempt to gauge which one he favored.

The blueberry tart, she recalled. It was Robb’s favorite, as well.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Sansa retorted, though the bite in her voice had been sapped away by the misery beginning to eat away at her again. She loved him more than she had any right to, considering she had left him alone in the world. It was her right to considering how he had broken his promise to her, but as the days passed her by, she couldn’t help but feel that she had made a mistake in abandoning him. What was she meant to do but watch him from afar and ensure that he was as happy and safe as he could manage to be? “I love him, Arya.”

Her sister snorted, the sound instantly bringing a frown to her lips. Arya had an acquired taste when it came to humor, but she never thought her sister would openly laugh at her anguish.

“Don’t be stupid,” Arya remarked as if the solution was as plain as day, and Sansa could not stop the dubious look she threw her sister’s way. Though she scarcely took Arya’s advice as it was, it seemed that she was more successful in the game of love than Sansa was, at the very least. Sansa furrowed her brows as her sister spoke, befuddled as to how any of this was supposed to help her feel better. “Everyone doubts what they’ve got when they first get it. No one’s just… happy without having any issues, but if they love you enough to make it want to work, it’s worth the trouble.” Arya clicked her tongue and gestured towards where Theon was sleeping soundly on a shrine to her, as if unintentionally emphasizing her point. “You mope around over him every day and evidently, he thinks about you too. Shouldn’t that be enough? What more do you need?”

Sansa blinked back her surprise.

Arya had been candid in her advice but where Sansa would have typically disregarded it on account of it being _Arya_, she found herself seriously mulling it over. Would she carry her regret with her until the end of her days if she refrained from going to him now? It would be so easy to allow bygones to be bygones and to return to earth with him until the end of his days but then again… she recalled the depth of Robb’s pain each time he lost a lover; how he would shrink into himself and cry out for the piece of his heart that died with them. She did not want to lose herself in her grief, unable to conceive of a future where she held Theon on his deathbed.

She wanted a life with him; one where they could travel the mortal world together, and have as many babes as they could handle, and make love for months on end without stopping. She wanted him for everything he could give her and more after that. She wanted him forever.

“I have to go,” she whispered, unable to take her eyes off of the vision before her. He was there and he was real and he loved her. Ignoring the victorious smirk of _I told you so_ on Arya’s face, she summoned all of the courage she could muster before making her descent from the heavens with the resolve of a lover more determined than ever to put things right. 

* * *

Theon startled as the smell burning wax met his nostrils, the smoke beginning to burn tears into his eyes as he groggily shook himself awake, not having the energy to attempt to open his eyes just yet. He wondered what idiot had lit candles before going to bed before realizing that he wasn’t in his own home. Memories from the night before flooded back to him—of reuniting with his mother, of returning home with the promise of seeing her again, of seeing some silver-haired deity in Yara’s bed, of leaving the villa in favor of offering his gratitude to Sansa for bringing him the one thing he never would have managed to find in his life without her. She had brought him his mother and expected nothing in return, just another testament to her selflessness and near-perfection. He had never deserved to be with her, and this only solidified it. Even after how his curiosity had hurt her, she was still giving him everything he could have wanted.

The slab of marble he was resting on wasn’t very comfortable but made do for a bed all the same, especially considering how the incense burned in the temple earlier in the day brought such a familiar smell to it that it made him want to weep; somehow, her temple smelled too familiar for him to not relate it to her presence. It smelled of charred paper and burning wax as well as lemons and vanilla and sage, though there was a sharp quality to it, as if indicating to him that he was intruding by having the gall to sleep in her temple at all. He did not deserve to be here, he knew, but it was the only place that he thought to visit in his groggy state.

_Come back to me_, he remembered whispering under his breath as his prayers got muddled in one another, so skewed from the ale he had consumed on his way to the temple, unable to help but crave Sansa’s presence by his side just as he had the first day she left. _Please come back to me._

Theon squeezed his eyes shut once more, trying to keep his tears at bay as he recalled the way she had loved him when he had her, unwavering in her ardor for him. She had loved him unconditionally, in such a way that he hardly believed it was real. He had never expected anyone to truly love him, least of all like that, and yet she had offered him her heart freely. Theon drew in a deep breath as he attempted to pull himself out of his memories, sweeter than his present had shaped out to be. It would do no good to linger on the past, least of all when she did not want him anymore. His love was unrequited now and the closest he would ever get to seeing her visage again was by staring enough at her statue that it almost looked like her.

And then a pair of lips were pressing against his right eyelid, lingering for just a moment before moving to place a kiss on the other. It was nearly dreamlike in quality, and the shuddering breath he released at the contact nearly swept him away. Was he so lost in his fantasies that he had begun hallucinating her presence in front of him? So lovestruck it rendered him mad?

He didn’t dare open his eyes but he could feel her presence as clear as if she had shook him awake herself. He could smell her, feel her, _touch_ her if he so desired it, but refrained from making a move. Instead, he remained frozen in place and attempted to swallow down his sigh of relief, his heart caught in his throat when he felt her fingers graze along his jaw as lovingly as they had before he had ever lit the match in the first place, doting and indulgent for his touch.

“Open your eyes, Theon.” The voice was so soft and yet it felt as if a blow had been delivered to his stomach twice over. For all that he had dreamed about that voice and recreated it in his head, nothing compared to hearing it again, even if it was all in his head. “Open your eyes.”

He complied within seconds of her request and it was like seeing the moon and every star in the sky at once, overwhelming and unbelievable. She was hovering directly above him, her brows drawn into a concerned furrow as he took her in for the very first time since the night where everything went wrong. Her eyes were shining, a calm blue in contrast to how he remembered it, and were expressive of so many things—things he couldn’t begin to start dissecting from his position on the ground, though he did note that it didn’t seem like outrage and betrayal were among them. They were soft and scrutinizing of his reaction to her, the slightest smile curving at her lips as he leaned into her touch, his breathing now shallow. She held a hand out to him searchingly, giving him the choice to turn her away if he so pleased. He didn’t hesitate to take it, allowing her to pull him up from where he had been lying on the cold ground for hours.

He opened his mouth to speak but was immediately cut off by her mouth against his.

It didn’t feel real but it _was_, and he kissed her back like he had been starving for her. In many ways, he had been—for her love, for her happiness, for the security she gave him, for her comfort, and her sweet kisses against his mouth. As they stood against each other, confused and lovelorn with a plethora of unspoken feelings and issues between them, he leaned further into the kiss, and wondered if it would be possible to drown in her touch. He would do it gladly and gods, would it be a way to go.

He didn’t need to look at her to know she was beautiful and yet, it was her who kept looking at him, as if to make sure that he didn’t crumble within her touch. He sobbed against her lips and gripped at her hips to ground himself back to reality. She was here and she wanted _him_. The kiss deepened somewhat as she inhaled deeply into his mouth, both unwilling to part from the other.

It was a kiss that expressed nearly everything he had been feeling—adoration, devotion, sadness, worship, hunger, regret, loss, _love_. There was a heat between them that seemed to ignite with their shared toil and mutual affection. She opened her mouth up to his probing tongue, whimpering against him as they resumed a dance they had done hundreds of times before this, his hips slowly snapping forward to meet hers even in their clothed state. _Be mine for always_, he could feel her mouth against his lips and it was enough to make him burn for her.

_I’ll be yours forever_, he tilted his head into the kiss and practically seared the words into her skin with his touch, wanting her in every way he could have her, wanting to love her, to fuck her, to worship her, if she so allowed it.

He cupped her cheek as she pawed at his tunic, making a decent effort of unbuttoning the shirt about halfway through before she refocused her efforts on unlacing his breeches with trembling hands. Against all sense, he found himself pressing her against the first flat surface he could locate in the temple, moaning with anticipation as his member sprung free and smacked against her thigh. Sansa pushed herself up onto the altar itself, parting her legs so as to allow Theon a position between them, his tunic half-torn off and breeches bunched around his ankles. He drew her right leg up somewhat as he rutted against her, the folds of her quim teasing his length before she was scooting forward and realigning the tip of his member against her entrance. He watched on heavy-lidded and mystified as she spread her legs further and began taking him inch by inch.

The open-mouthed kisses he pressed to the underside of his jaw grew more frenzied as he began pushing deeper into her, withdrawing just enough to use the momentum for his next thrust.

Within seconds, she had drawn herself closer to him and pulled him over top the altar, urging him into a truly blasphemous state as he settled between her legs on the platform. The pace slowed somewhat as she grabbed madly for his face, initiating another heated kiss while she drew him to her. Their eyes locked as he slowly began fucking her on a literal shrine to herself, and he felt himself start to lose his pacing as she matched his thrusts with her own.

She was deep under his skin, in his bones, in his heart.

He choked out a sob as she reconnected their lips, her wetness addicting around him. She was hot, burning almost, and he couldn’t get enough of it. He slipped in and out of her effortlessly, immediately moving to suck a bloom into her neck, all while wanting her beyond anything he had ever wanted before. Their intermingled moans were the only sound reverberating through the temple, the candle stands and boarding beneath them rattling as he began rocking into her harder.

She keened as he pounded into her, her legs hooked around his waist and teats mostly-exposed with the way her dress had been torn and stretched since being set upon the altar. She let out a guttural moan as he pushed in and out one last time before shuddering and spilling into her.

He could feel her trembling around him as she snaked a hand downward to begin circling her index fingers around her pearl until she followed suit. Her orgasm had her pulsating around him, a neverending pleasure that shook him to his core. He was pressing stray kisses against her jaw and cheek, still disbelieving that she had actually come to him, and in her own temple, no less. She returned his kiss fervently in between gasps of pleasure, even as their peaks wore down and grounded them back to reality. His hair dripped with sweat as he settled them into a lazier kiss, his heart fit to burst as he realized that it hadn’t been a fever dream of some sort; she was here.

“Come with me,” she whispered without a moment’s pause, still pinned underneath on top of an altar that most villagers used to make offerings to her. “I want you to come with me, Theon, to the heavens. You could… I could speak with my father, my love. He could make you one of us.”

He knew from the resolution in her tone that she didn’t mean to have him return to her palace.

“You know I cannot,” he breathed out, tilting his forehead against hers as he pulled out of her with the slightest whine. “I have to stay here for my mother and sister, Sansa. I have to watch over them, or else-” He pulled her close to him, holding her to his chest as he exhaled unevenly; he had never felt like this before, never _loved_ like this before, and it killed him to have to refuse her anything she asked of him. “They need me, Sansa. I promised her I would stay with her.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” Sansa admitted, glancing upward to meet his eyes with her own before she found that she had to look away. Those were the eyes she had fallen in love with, far before she had fallen in love with the rest of him. Even now, half-clothed and sweating against the altar in her temple, she loved him. Before she could stop herself, the suggestion had rolled off her tongue, though her hesitance was clear by the tone with which she voiced it aloud. “I could stay here with you. I could embrace my mortality and live my last lifetime… with you.”

Her meaning was not lost on him.

“I won’t ask you to do that for me,” Theon shook his head vehemently, recognizing that the life with him she was suggesting would mean losing her family- losing her _life. _What was wrong with doing what they had done before in embracing a domestic lifestyle for themselves in the palace beside the mountains? He could live his life with her just as they had done before he had lit the match and thrown their lives for a loop. He would not risk trapping her into a life she didn’t want, no matter how much he wanted to be with her. “You deserve more than that.”

“I would rather live one lifetime with you than a thousand with anyone else,” she murmured, brushing his stray tears away with both thumbs on either side of his face. “I love you.”

He lunged forward to kiss her once more, watery and messy but wholly devoted. “And I love you.”

* * *

When he awoke mere hours later, he was alone.

The temple was empty and the candles had been blown out, leaving nothing in the vicinity but his own belongings, strewn across the room over the two times he had awoken over the course of the night. His heart cracked in his chest at the realization that the night prior was a goodbye of sorts, no matter the hollowness that seemed to overtake his chest in remembrance of their final embrace. No longer did the blindfold or the match haunt him as much as ‘come with me’ did.

He left her temple disheveled and worse for wear and when he arrived at the villa with tears in his eyes, Yara needed no explanation before pouring him a glass of strongwine.

* * *

Yara had scolded him for his refusal of immortality without end, telling him to seek her out and take it back; that he should not compromise his happiness for her and their mother, no matter how he wanted to stay with them. He could visit them from the heavens, she rationalized to him when he threw her a withering look, or at the very least watch over them from the sky.

It was a solution, he knew, but he did not want to abandon his mother so soon after meeting her, nor did he want to leave his sister by her lonesome no matter how occupied she seemed to be with her new lover; the woman she refused to name or acknowledge with anything but a shrug whenever Theon brought her up. She must have been a goddess by the way Yara held her identity close to her heart, or perhaps a deity come from the Underworld to keep her company. Either way, the woman seemed to bring a newfound spark to Yara’s eyes, and the strangest of smiles to her lips whenever she returned from ‘hunting’ which curiously enough never ended with her bringing any game meat home for them. 

Even Alannys had frowned at him when she pressed him for the truth, sparing a sidelong glance at Elia before remarking on how very sad the situation was. No matter the encouragement he received from his mother and sister, it did not feel right to abandon them, least of all now. For all of Yara’s muttering about what a hair-brained fool he was, he knew that she appreciated his loyalty to his family, no matter how the consequences devastated his own heart. He loved Sansa, he did, but he could not be selfish with her. It was the one deserving thing he could do.

And so his life continued without her.

* * *

On the seventh day following his final night with Sansa at her temple, there was a figure waiting for him in the pasture of the Iron Grove. Theon paused upon entering, sparing a glance behind him to see that Yara was nowhere in sight. She had been right behind him but seemed to have disappeared into thin air along with his mother and her lover, who were supposed to be here.

He approached the dark-haired stranger cautiously, trying to make his identity out to no avail.

“They are not far,” the man assured him as if he could sense Theon’s distress from the short distance between them. His eyes were a cool grey, hard and unrelenting in his stare, though he did not have a weapon drawn nor did he seem to wish any ill on Theon. He looked upon him with inscrutable eyes, as if appraising him. “I assure you, I would not harm either of them.”

“What do you want from me?” Theon asked, knowing better than to question divinity when faced with it. He knew a god when he saw one, at this point, and wondered how many of them had taken a fascination with Pyke as of late. Was there nowhere else in Planetos that required their attention? He lifted his chin up in defiance, unrelenting in his defensiveness until he could see his mother and sister for himself. “Whatever you want, I probably don’t have it.”

The man did not smile, but there was a hint of humor in his eyes when he spoke next.

“My daughter has been inconsolable since you parted. She says she loves you and that you love her, but you refused her offer of immortality.” He lifted his eyes to lock on Theon’s as if to make any lies out from the truth. “Is that true?”

A moment too late, Theon realized exactly who this man was.

“I could not leave my mother,” he explained to Eddard as best as he could, attempting not to be shaken by the fact that the man could likely strike him down with a twist of his pinky finger if he so wished it. His face seemed to heat as he realized that the man likely knew he had made love to his daughter as many times as the sun had set and risen , and struggled to keep his composure. “I love Sansa. I would do anything to spend the rest of my life with her, but… I made a vow.”

“You made a vow to love my daughter as well,” Eddard pointed out and Theon could feel the sweat beading at his temple. “You swore yourself to her as she did to you and yet, here you are.”

“I will always love Sansa,” Theon defended himself, trying and failing to keep the emotion out of his voice as Eddard’s statements began sounding increasingly like accusations. He visited her temple every morning and every evening, no matter the looks he received from the smallfolk and warriors he once used to spend hours sailing and roving with in his youth. It was well-known at this point throughout Pyke that eros in the form of a woman had stolen his heart. “Always.”

“So you will,” the man conceded and Theon’s shoulders sagged with confusion. What did he want with him if not to punish him for whatever crime he saw fit to condemn him with? His thoughts were running a mile a minute as a sharp wind blew through the grove, rustling Theon’s hair and almost knocking him clean over. He had just barely regained his balance before the deity before him was speaking again in a stern voice that seemed to command his attention without even having to try, equally terrifying as he was calming, in an odd way. “My daughter loves you, Theon Greyjoy, and she has made a request of me. I promised her that I would grant it if it was in my power to do so. It seems that it might be, if it is what you want, as well.”

Theon cocked his head to the side, wondering where this was leading if not in his death or heartbreak. If Sansa had asked it of her father, it could not be _that_ bad, could it?

“I offer you immortality,” Eddard declared. “And to your sister and mothers, if you wish it.”

“What?” Theon’s voice cracked like a whip against the brewing storm behind him, droplets of water dripping one by one onto his face as he fully processed what the man was saying. The phrasing ‘mothers’ was not lost on him, but he couldn’t bring himself to question it when his lover’s father was offering her everything he could have ever wanted. The suspicion in him warred with the gratefulness, never knowing a god to offer a mortal such boon without expecting something ridiculous in return for taking it, that likely resulted in their death. “Why?”

“She loves you,” he responded simply, not budging as he watched him with eyes that made him increasingly uncomfortable in their intensity. “I want to see her happy. Accept and ascend with me. Refuse and you shall suffer no consequences by my hand. What say you, Theon Greyjoy?”

He did not have to think on it long. “I accept.”

* * *

When his eyes opened, it was as if he had been reborn thrice over, with two faces hovering over his own. One was concerned, lips tight and pursed as she appraised him for any sign that he was hurt. Her hair was brown but had more sheen to it than he recalled, her eyes dancing with mirth as he groggily mumbled ‘hello’ in a manner that had a crowd of voices laughing with amusement. Yara, he realized as she withdrew from him upon getting confirmation that he was still alive, cracking a joke to someone that he couldn’t quite make out in his hazy state. Now there was only one face above his own, still blurred as he attempted to come to and snap out of it.

He could make out a flash of copper as a soft hand slid underneath his head to lift it off the ground as another one found its way to his chest, feeling his heartbeat as it pounded in his ribcage. It was faster than usual, thumping wildly as if it was about to gallop off without him.

The world began clearing up around him as he caught a glimpse of a familiar smile, radiant and beautiful as he remembered it. The dimples in her cheek only deepened as his eyes locked on hers, the unmistakable rush of love he felt for her coursing through his body as she smiled down at him. Her eyes were sparkling, as if she was on the brink of tears, and so he spoke.

“Sansa,” he breathed out, his voice trembling as she choked out a laugh, a watery smile forming on her lips as soon as he said her name aloud. She was here, and holding him, and he wondered if he had died horribly in the storm to earn an afterlife as sweet as this. “I came back to you.”

“You did,” she laughed melodically and gods, had it been too long since he heard that sound. Her fingers began curling through his hair, scratching at the back of his head affectionately as if all she wanted to do was lay with him on the ground in… wherever they were. “You came back.”

He could do naught but smile at her then, marveling at the sight of her happiness.

Their eye contact was prolonged, filled with a blend of emotions that he could not even begin to describe. There were other people around them, he knew, but he could not bring himself to try identifying any of them when she was gazing down at him like he was the best thing to happen to her. Gently, he felt her hand urge his head upwards and he helped her as best as he could in his weakened state, still not having quite regained his bearings yet. He felt as if he was floating when she bent down to press her lips against his, tasting like the heavens themselves, and he deepened the kiss with more enthusiasm than he intended. The sound of rambunctious laughter around them drew him back to reality as they pulled apart from each other, still smiling brightly.

Everything began to come to him in particles as he blinked, taking in his surroundings disbelievingly. There was gold and there were clouds, all melding together with a plethora of colors and faces. Sansa was still propping him up with a helpful hand as his eyes roamed over his company. Eddard was standing next to a woman with braided hair, smiling as if she was truly touched by the display of affection, and next to them were a group of people. A man with russet curls and a pleased smile on his face, a short brunette in hunting gear and a bow slung over her shoulder, a boy with sullen eyes and a gentle smile, and too many people to count without getting dizzy in the head all over again. Had he truly joined her in the heavens? Was this real?

He searched for his last bit of confirmation, eyes poring over each face until he saw his mother standing in a silver gown that draped over the center, holding a scythe in one hand as Elia beamed at him from her side, dressed in an ostentatious orange that nearly hurt his head to look at. They seemed happy and if that was the case then…

“I’m really here?” He asked softly, attempting to sit up a bit more in his spot as his head began clearing up somewhat. “With you?”

“You are,” Sansa murmured back adoringly, her fingers dancing over the side of his face before she gave in and leaned back into him to press a fleeting kiss against his cheek. He turned his head to capture her lips with his own, so overcome by joy that he could not manage anything but a breathless laugh. She nudged her nose against his, closing her eyes contentedly as they breathed one another in, hearts at rest for the first time since they had met. “Are you happy?”

His answering kiss was all the affirmation she needed before she was drawing him closer to her, basking in the glory of their mutual love. They had been made for this; to love one another as the sun set on Pyke and rose in Sunspear, as the springtime ushered in the winter, from this day until the end of their days, the word _forever_ embedded into their hearts.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Tumblr at targaryenstyrell.


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